Tag: Christian Zionism

Meet the Israeli Politician Who is Not Afraid to Call Out Israel’s Apartheid and Ethnic Cleansing. What Would AIPAC Make of Him?

As a news-junkie who has traveled throughout Israel and the West Bank a number of times, I can assure you that — despite the unchanging nature of their apartheid Zionist policies — the Israeli public is allowed to criticize their government in ways that will get you linched as an anti-Semite in the United States.

As exhibit A, simply recall the recent condemnation of Rep. Ilhan Omar who had the temerity to state the obvious on Twitter:  AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is a pro-Israel lobby that both facilitates and destroys political careers in Washington, D.C.

Read my posts about this subject here, here and here.

Below I have excerpted an interview from the Israeli daily newspaper, Haaretz, entitled “The Knesset Candidate Who Says Zionism Encourages anti-Semitism and Calls Netanyahu ‘Arch-murderer’.”

Israel’s political scene is preparing for national elections to be held in April.  Dr. Ofer Cassif is running for parliamentary office (Israel’s Knesset) as the Jewish representative for the far-leftist Hadash party, a party that includes both Jews and Palestinians.

I have excerpted the interview below (with minor rearrangement of two paragraphs for continuity).

“Cassif, 54, who holds a doctorate in political philosophy from the London School of Economics, teaches political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,

Members at the Hadash party primaries

Sapir Academic College in Sderot and at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo. He lives in Rehovot, is married and is the father of a 19-year-old son. He’s been active in Hadash for three decades and has held a number of posts in the party.

“As a lecturer, he stands out for his boldness and fierce rhetoric, which draws students of all stripes. He even hangs out with some of his Haredi students [conservative Orthodox Jews], one of whom wrote a post on the eve of the Hadash primary urging the delegates to choose him…

“Cassif is third on the slate of Knesset candidates in Hadash (the Hebrew acronym for the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality), the successor to Israel’s Communist Party. He holds the party’s “Jewish slot,” replacing MK Dov Khenin. Cassif is likely to draw fire from opponents and be a conspicuous figure in the next Knesset, following the April 9 election…

“…Cassif, who was one of the first Israeli soldiers to refuse to serve in the territories, in 1987, gained fame thanks to a number of provocative statements.

Dr. Ofir Cassif, Hadash candidate for israel’s Knesset in the upcoming elections

The best known is his branding of Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked as “neo-Nazi scum.” On another occasion, he characterized Jews who visit the Temple Mount as ‘cancer with metastases that have to be eradicated.’…

“Is Netanyahu an arch-murderer?”

“Yes. I wrote it in the specific context of a particular day in the Gaza Strip. A massacre of innocent people was perpetrated there, and no one’s going to persuade me that those people were endangering anyone. It’s a concentration camp. Not a ‘concentration camp’ in the sense of Bergen-Belsen; I am absolutely not comparing the Holocaust to what’s happening.”

“You term what Israel is doing to the Palestinians ‘genocide.’”

“I call it ‘creeping genocide.’ Genocide is not only a matter of taking people to gas chambers. When Yeshayahu Leibowitz used the term ‘Judeo-Nazis,’ people asked him, ‘How can you say that? Are we about to build gas chambers?’ To that, he had two things to say. First, if the whole difference between us and the Nazis boils down to the fact that we’re not building gas chambers, we’re already in trouble. And second, maybe we won’t use gas chambers, but the mentality that exists today in Israel – and he said this 40 years ago – would allow it. I’m afraid that today, after four years of such an extreme government, it possesses even greater legitimacy.

“But you know what, put aside ‘genocide’ – ethnic cleansing is taking place there. And that ethnic cleansing is also being carried out by means of killing, although mainly by way of humiliation and of making life intolerable. The trampling of human dignity. It reminds me of Primo Levi’s ‘If This Is a Man.’”…

“Israel commits murder on a daily basis. When you murder one Palestinian, you’re called Elor Azaria [the IDF soldier convicted and jailed for killing an incapacitated Palestinian assailant]; when you murder and oppress thousands of Palestinians, you’re called the State of Israel.” (all emphasis is mine)

 

Israel Imprisons Palestinian Legislator without Charge, Detained for 20 Months and Counting

Israeli leaders, and their Zionist cohorts, frequently describe themselves as “the only democracy in the Middle East.”  But as Gideon Levy points out in his lasted piece at Haaretz, this claim can only be accepted if we redefine “democracy” to mean “an ethnocratic state providing democracy to Jews while confining all others to a police-state devoid of liberty or due process of law.”

Levy’s article is entitled, “Remember: Israel is Still Holding a Palestinian Law Maker as Political Prisoner Indefinitely.”  I have excerpted his article below.  You can read the entire piece by clicking on the title above.

Palestinian legislator, Kalida Jarrar, being imprisoned indefinitely, without charges or trial, in an Israeli military prison

“Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar has been incarcerated in an Israeli jail without a trial for 20 months. Another period of ‘administrative detention’ will soon expire. Will she come home?

“Khalida Jarrar is Israel’s No. 1 female political prisoner, the leader of the inmates in Damon Prison, on Mt. Carmel, and the most senior Palestinian woman Israel has jailed, without her ever having been convicted of any offense.

“The public struggle for her release has been long and frustrating, with more resonance abroad than in Israel. Here it encounters the implacable walls of the occupation authorities and the startling indifference of Israeli public opinion: People here don’t care that they’re living under a regime in which there are political prisoners. There is also the silence of the female MKs and the muteness of the women’s organizations.

“Haaretz has devoted no fewer than five editorials demanding either that evidence against her be presented or that she be released immediately. To no avail: Jarrar is still in detention and she still hasn’t been charged…

“…Reminder: On April 2, 2015, troops of the Israel Defense Forces raided the Jarrar family’s home in El Bireh, adjacent to Ramallah, and abducted Khalida, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

“She was placed in administrative detention. In the wake of international protests over Israel’s arrest without charges of a lawmaker who was elected democratically, the occupation authorities decided to try her. She was indicted on 12 counts, all of them utterly grotesque, including suspicion of visiting the homes of prisoners’ families, suspicion of attending a book fair and suspicion of calling for the release of Ahmad Saadat, a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who has been in prison for years.

“The charge sheet against Jarrar – an opponent of the occupation, a determined feminist and a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee – will one day serve as the crushing proof that there is not even the slightest connection between “military justice” and actual law and justice…

“…During Khalida’s last arrest, recalls her husband, IDF soldiers and Shin Bet security service agents burst into the house by force in the dead of night. They entered Suha’s (their daughter) room and woke her up. He remembers how she shouted, panic-stricken at the sight of the rifles being brandished by strange men in her bedroom wearing black masks, and how the soldiers handcuffed her from behind. As Ghassan replays the scene in his mind and remembers his daughter’s shouts, he grows distraught, as if it had happened this week.

“Not knowing know what the soldiers were doing to her there, and only hearing her shouts, he tried to come to his daughter’s rescue, he recalls. He says he was almost killed by the soldiers for trying to force his way into Suha’s bedroom.

“After the soldiers took Khalida, preventing Ghassan from even kissing her goodbye, despite his request – he discovered his daughter, bound by plastic handcuffs.”

 

 

Rep. Omar Speaks Truth to Power and Pays the Price

Newly elected Representative Ilhan Omar is being accused of Tweeting anti-Semitic slurs for speaking the truth:  AIPAC (the American Israel Public

Rep. Ilhan Omar

Affairs Committee) is among the most powerful lobbying organizations in this country.

Working in coordination with the Israeli government, AIPAC deploys sizeable financial and public relations resources in order to destroy any and all congressional voices that are critical of Israel.  They don’t hesitate to destroy the political careers and personal reputations of anyone with sufficient moral backbone to criticize Israel’s inhumane treatment of the Palestinian people.

Please watch the 4-part Al-Jazeera documentary, “The Lobby,” to see for yourself how insufferably dishonest pro-Israel lobbying groups can be.  I have discussed it in a previous post, “Discover Why Pro-Israel/Zionists Groups Fought to Stop You From Seeing This Documentary.”  You will find embedded links to the documentary there as well.

Two recent articles also provide helpful information with some historical context to the campaign of public shaming Rep. Omar has suffered for speaking the truth.  They are:

“Pro-Israel Lobby Caught on Tape Boasting That Its Money Influences Washington,” by Ryan Grimm at The Intercept.

“Democratic Party Insiders Create Group to Promote Israel to Progressives,” by Alison Weir at MPN News.  This well-researched piece is particularly apt in that Weir highlights AIPAC’s influence within the upper

Rep. Rashida Tlaib

echelons of the Democratic Party specifically designed to stop politicians like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from ever criticizing Israel.

The two excerpts below come from the two articles mentioned above.  The first is from The Intercept, the second is from MPN News.

First excerpt: “A debate about the power in Washington of the pro-Israel lobby is underway, after Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., responded sharply to reports that Republican leader Kevin McCarthy was targeting both Omar and fellow Muslim Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan.

“Omar quoted rap lyrics — “It’s all about the Benjamins baby” — to suggest McCarthy’s move was driven by the lobby’s prolific spending. Asked specifically who she was referring to, Omar responded, “AIPAC!”

“The debate over the influence of pro-Israel groups could be informed by an investigation by Al Jazeera, in which an undercover reporter infiltrated The Israel Project, a Washington-based group, and secretly recorded conversations about political strategy and influence over a six-month period in 2016. That investigation, however, was never aired by the network — suppressed by pressure from the pro-Israel lobby.

“In November, Electronic Intifada obtained and published the four-part series, but it did so during the week of the midterm elections, and the documentary did not get a lot of attention then.

“In it, leaders of the pro-Israel lobby speak openly about how they use money to influence the political process, in ways so blunt that if the comments were made by critics, they’d be charged with anti-Semitism…  

“…Without spending money, Ochs argues, the pro-Israel lobby isn’t able to enact its agenda. “Congressmen and senators don’t do anything unless you pressure them. They kick the can down the road, unless you pressure them, and the only way to do that is with money,” he explains.”

Second excerpt:  “Some Democratic heavy hitters have formed a new pro-Israel organization focused on progressive Democrats. The new group, “Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI),” is the latest in a long line of groups working for Israel in the United States.

“New York Jewish Week reports that the group was formed “to counter the drift

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 19, 2009. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)

— if not dive — away from support for Israel within the party.” Israel partisans are concerned at the growing support among Democrats for Palestinian human rights, as awareness of the situation has grown in recent years.

“Numerous humanitarian agencies have documented Israeli human rights violations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), Christian Aid, the International Red Cross, and others.

“In addition, videos of Israeli settlers destroying Palestinian crops, Israeli soldiers beating people, including children, and killing unarmed protestors have become increasingly available on the Internet.

“This has had a perception-shattering impact.

“For many years surveys showed that more Americans sympathized with Israel than with Palestinians. But growing knowledge of the region among progressive Democrats has now reversed the numbers within that group. A 2018 Pew survey found that “nearly twice as many liberal Democrats say they sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israel.”

“In addition, the New York Times reports, Israel partisans were jolted by the election of  Representatives Ilhan Omar (MN) and Rashida Tlaib (MI), who support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) who has called the occupation of Palestine a humanitarian crisis.”

History tells us that AIPAC, with the covert support of the Israeli government, will  do everything it possibly can to defeat these brave, new congresswomen when they run for reelection.  The current character assassination of Rep. Omar is only the first volley of pro-Zionist dirty tricks.

I can’t vote for any of these women, but I have written them letters of support, thanking them for their honesty and encouraging them not to give up.  I hope that you may take similar steps yourself.

No, Mr. President, Israel’s Border Wall Has Not Worked

President Trump regularly appeals to Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims about the supposed success of Israel’s border wall with the West Bank as ironclad evidence in favor of his own border wall plans with Mexico.

The problem is, it’s not true.

The wall dividing Israel from the West Bank has not “worked” to stop terrorism, but then that was never its actual intent.  It has, on the other hand, been very successful in accomplishing its actual purpose, which Israel will never acknowledge in public.

Here’s why:

First, it is true that after Israel began construction of its separation/annexation wall during the Second Intifada in 2000, terrorist attacks within Israel came to a slow but steady halt.  But in 2001, Hamas leaders (the organization headquartered in Gaza largely responsible for the suicide bombings) claimed that their decision was driven by internal, political considerations and had nothing to do with Israel’s wall.  Check out this 2001 article in the British newspaper, The Independent, “Hamas Orders Halt to Suicide Bomb Attacks.”

Of course, Hamas leaders could be lying about their motives in order to save face.  But I suspect not, for the simple reason that Israel’s wall is not much of a barrier to the determined terrorist.

I have seen people climb over the wall quite easily.

Long stretches of the wall are nothing more than a fence, mostly strung up in far-flung, isolated areas.  It would be easy for a would-be bomber to dig under, climb over or cut through this fence at any number of spots where they would never be seen, or long-gone by the time a border patrol appeared.

This is why I believe Hamas is telling the truth.  They chose to stop their bombing campaign because it was costing them support for their cause in the international community and creating division within the membership of the Palestinian Authority.

Second, regardless of all this, touting the awesome success of Israel’s “wall” makes for great P.R. among the Zionist community.  It also provides a good illustration of a classic logical fallacy.  It’s just a shame that logic never stood in the way of a Zionist hoping to score political points – especially when that Zionist’s name is Benjamin Netanyahu.

Perhaps you have heard of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy.  If not, I’ll clue you in.  It’s a Latin phrase meaning “after this, therefore because of this.”  Its purpose is to point out the invalid assumption that just because one event follows after another event, we cannot assume that the first event was the cause of the other.

Yes, the rooster crows every morning just moments before sunup.  That doesn’t mean, however, that Mr. Sunshine is hovering below the horizon, waiting for Mr. Rooster’s signal.

In other words, correlation is not proof of causation.

Just because suicide bombings ended soon after Israel began building its separation wall is not proof, in and of itself, that suicide bombings ended because of the wall.  We must search for other evidence to prove this claim to be either true or false.

I think that the wall’s easy permeability – any determined bomber could get through if he/she wanted to – tips the scales in favor of believing Hamas’ own explanation:  they chose to stop using that particular tactic.

So, NO.  When president Trump says over and over again that these walls are always 99.9% effective, he is simply one presidential blow-hard mimicking another presidential blow-hard’s propaganda point. But then, both of these men, Trump and Netanyahu, are 99.9% die-hard political opportunists and only 0.1% intelligent thinkers – and I suspect even that figure is too generous for Trump.

Third, without going into the background here, political Zionism has a very, very long history of believing in the need for a literal wall of some sort to isolate Israel from the bloodthirsty Arab hordes around them.  Their current isolation/separation/annexation barrier is the product of Zionist colonial racism.  If you want to learn more about this issue, read Avi Shlaim’s important book, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (W.W. Norton, 2000).

The only way in which this wall has actually “worked” has been its success in illegally expropriating more land for Israel, in stopping Palestinian farmers and herdsmen from tending their flocks, their fields and their orchards, in dividing villages and families.

Israel’s wall is only one more Zionist tactic for stealing Palestinian land and oppressing the people of the West Bank.

In that way, it works marvelously.

Congress Should Not Be Criminalizing My Right, And Yours, to Boycott Apartheid Israel

Below is the most recent Action Alert from the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

Please digest this explanation of the first Congressional vote scheduled for tomorrow (1/8/19) and call your  elected officials.  Explain to them that no foreign government, including Israel, can nullify your right to participate in BDS campaigns in your own country.

“Last Thursday, the Senate’s first bill of the new Congress – S.1 – was introduced

Marco Rubio is another senator receiving large contributions from AIPAC

by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), and it encourages states to punish people for boycotting for Palestinian rights.

To make matters worse, the Senate is scheduled to vote on the bill tomorrow.

Friend, please click here to get a sample script and phone numbers for your Senators.

Then please pick up the phone RIGHT NOW and tell your Senators to vote NO on S.1.

Sen. Rubio’s new bill incorporates language from the Combating BDS Act, his unconstitutional bill which we defeated in the last Congress. 

The Combating BDS Act calls upon states and cities to enact laws that curtail our constitutional freedoms by denying government contracts to people who boycott for Palestinian rights. In response to lawsuits filed by the ACLU, these types of laws have already been stopped by federal judges in Kansas and Arizona on constitutional grounds, and there are three additional lawsuits currently challenging similar laws in Texas and Arkansas.

Even though courts are siding with us and reaffirming our constitutional right to boycott for Palestinian rights, Sen. Rubio is still trying to pass legislation to deny our First Amendment rights.

That’s why it’s so important for you to call your Senators today to oppose S.1.

Thank you for taking action.”

The Intercept has been following this story closely for some time (see here and here).

The headline of their most recent article is “The U.S. Senate’s First Bill, In the Midst of the Shutdown, Is a Bipartisan Defense of the Israeli Government from Boycotts.”

The title captures the ludicrous nature of this bill and the corruption generated by the pro-Zionist lobby, especially AIPAC, in the US Congress.

Senator Chuck Shumer is also on the AIPAC gravy train

Here is an excerpt:

“…in the 2019 GOP-controlled Senate, the first bill to be considered — S.1 — is not designed to protect American workers, bolster U.S. companies, or address the various debates over border security and immigration. It’s not a bill to open the government. Instead, according to multiple sources involved in the legislative process, S.1 will be a compendium containing a handful of foreign policy-related measures, the main one of which is a provision — with Florida’s GOP Sen. Marco Rubio as a lead sponsor — to defend the Israeli government. The bill is a top legislative priority for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.”

Who do your senators and congressional representatives really represent?  You or Israel?

Haaretz Magazine Explains Another Lost Opportunity in Israel’s History

Adam Raz has a good article in the most recent Haaretz news magazine investigating the debate that raged among Zionism’s leadership immediately after the 1948-49 War, when Israel declared its “independence,” over the future status of Palestinians remaining within the borders of the new state.

I have excerpted selected paragraphs below to give you a sense of the attitudes held by these men. If you want to know more, you can find the entire article here.

There were early Zionist leaders who possessed the remnant of a

Moshe Sharett, Israel’s second Prime Minister

humanitarian conscience.  Men such as Moshe Sharett.

Although, frankly, any leader who failed vociferously to protest against the ethnic cleansing committed by Israel’s military forces in that war – which includes all of the men mentioned here — has abdicated any right to be respected, in my book.

Nevertheless, the article does a good job of showing that Israel did not have to end up where it is today: an oppressive apartheid state.  There were alternatives on the table at the time.  There were men advocating for a multi-ethnic state where Palestinians would have been fully integrated into Israeli society.

Sadly, those humane voices were a minority, and they lost the argument.

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister

The iron-fisted racism of David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan and their equally savage ilk won the day, dooming both Palestinians and Israelis to the catastrophe that is Israel/Palestine today.

For those who are interested, I highly recommend a book by the Jewish, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel (Yale, 2011).

Pinhas Lavon, Minister of Defense

“(Pinhas Lavon, minister of Defense,) insisted, ‘The State of Israel cannot solve the question of the Arabs who are in the country by Nazi means, he stated, adding, Nazism is Nazism, even if carried out by Jews…’

 “’It is impossible to work among them if the policy is to oppress Arabs – that prevents concrete action. What is being carried out is a dramatic and brutal suppression of the Arabs in Israel…’

 “(Moshe) Sharett maintained that Ben-Gurion had not given consideration to the root of the problem. ‘Terrible things were being done against Arabs in the country,’ he warned. ‘Until a Jew is hanged for murdering an Arab for no reason, in cold blood, the Jews will not

David Hacohen, Knesset member

understand that Arabs are not dogs but human beings…’

Zalman Aharon, Knesset member

 “(Knesset member David Hocohen argued), ‘These laws that we are coming up with in regard to Israel’s Arab residents cannot even be likened to the laws that were promulgated against the Jews in the Middle Ages, when they were deprived of all rights. After all, this is a total contrast between our declarations and our deeds.’..

 “’Zalman Aran compared the situation of the Arabs in Israel with the situation of Jews in other countries. On the basis of what we are doing here to the Arabs, there is no justification for demanding a different attitude toward Jewish minorities in other countries. I would be contemptuous of Arabs who would want

Moshe Dayan, military commander and politician

to form ties with us on the basis of this policy. We would be lying…we are lying to ourselves and we are lying to the nations of the world…

 “He (David Ben Gurion) added, ‘We view them [Palestinian Arabs] like donkeys. They don’t care. They accept it [their subjugation] with love… To loosen the reins on the Arabs would be a great danger,’ he added: ‘You and your ilk – those who support the abolition of the military government or making it less stringent – will be responsible for the perdition of Israel.’”

Let me make two observations on these citations.

First, the hard-line, political Zionists like Ben-Gurion make it very clear from the beginning that they envisioned a nation for Jews only.  There was no room for anyone else to have equal rights in Zionist Israel.

Here we see the essentially racist heart of political Zionism, the strain of Zionism that won these early contests and has controlled Israeli political life ever since.  For nearly twenty years Israel enforced two different sets of laws for its citizens.  Jews were governed by the state’s normal, civil legislation.  Palestinians, on the other hand, were governed by draconian military law stripping them of their civil rights.

When the United Nations passed Resolution 3379 in 1975 declaring that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination” they were absolutely correct insofar as “Zionism” was represented on the world stage exclusively by Israel.

Second, notice that drawing comparisons between Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews and Zionist Israel’s treatment of Palestinians has a very long history.  Many Jewish critics of political Zionism have made the comparison, as you can see in this article.  It is not, in and of itself, an anti-Semitic slur, but a simple, fair-minded observation of “facts on the ground,” as Israeli politicians like to say.

Evangelicals Share in War Crimes Remaining Blind to Oppression All Around Them

Every time I return to Israel’s Occupied Territory, I am taken aback by the irreversible transformations foisted onto the resident Palestinians by Israel’s illegal settlements project.

Every year, more and more hilltops sprout cookie-cutter apartment blocks, all covered by the same red-brick tiles, stretching end-to-end from one

Ariel settlement in the West Bank

settlement rooftop to the next.  Older settlements have grown.  Newer settlements appear as if by magic.  All of them shamelessly blushing brick-red under heaven’s gaze.

What little forest and greenery once existed in this barren land has been uprooted, plowed under and paved over to make way for more Jewish settlers, a good many of whom come from the United States, happy to take advantage of the many financial enticements Israel offers to this new generation of “pioneers.”

Several weeks ago, the Israeli daily paper Haaretz published an interesting exposé about this settler movement, and its sad ties to American evangelicalism.  It is entitled:  “Inside the Evangelical Money Flowing Into the West Bank.”

The article details the vast sums of money being donated by U.S. Christian Zionists to Israel’s illegal settler movement.

According to Haaretz, “the total amount of funding raised in the past 10 years [is] somewhere between $50 million and $65 million.”

Yep, $50 to $65 million US dollars channeled from Christian coffers into the

An American family of Christian Zionists volunteering in an illegal settlement

last western, settler-colonial project occurring in direct violation of international law.

Believe it or not, it is another of the many bizarre ways in which Israel continues to mimic the behavior of Nazi Germany and every other settler-colonial project in history.  I kid you not.

Check out the Fourth Geneva Convention, if you’ve never read it.  Especially Section III, article 49 dealing with Occupied Territories.  The most relevant portions declare:

“Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.

 “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

Written during a time of rising anti-colonial sentiment, this portion of the Geneva Convention was also drafted in the shadow of Hitler’s massive population transfers throughout Eastern Europe prior to the outbreak of World War II.  After his conquest of Poland in 1939, Hitler announced:

“a new order of ethnographical conditions, that is to say, a resettlement of nationalities in such a manner that the process ultimately results in the obtaining of better dividing lines.” 

Populations would be moved about in order to benefit the expansion of

American volunteers helping with an illegal grape harvest in Occupied Territory

ethnic Germans.

Hitler’s explicit goal was to protect all Germans in Europe who were “threatened with de-Germanization.”

THAT is the primary motive behind the inclusion of Section III, article 49 in the Fourth Geneva Convention.

How tragically ironic that the offspring of Holocaust survivors who found refuge in Israel now implement a similar ethnographic plan intended to “Judaize” Samaria and Judea (aka the West Bank) by means of massive population transfers, i.e. native Palestinians are being pushed out so that foreign, Jewish settlers can move in.

This is why Israel’s settler project in the Occupied Territory is illegal, folks.  It’s illegal because it would make Hitler proud.  It violates the Geneva Conventions, which was spearheaded by the United States.

Only weeks ago, I was driving past many of these settlements as my

Illegal settlements funded by Christian donations from the US

Palestinian friend pointed out the numerous, new expansions now under construction.  In several cases, he also told me the stories of how the Israeli authorities had, once again, used their laughable “laws” of land ownership to “legally” confiscate, i.e. steal, more of this Palestinian real estate.

As I read this article (and another on the same subject) I am struck by the near complete absence of any reference to the native inhabitants of this land – the Palestinian people.  When passing reference is made to the “other” folks who were living here long before the state of Israel, they are noted in passing as the restless hostiles who really ought to give up their struggle, if they know what’s good for them.

One American Zionist, working as a volunteer picking illegal grapes in an illegal vineyard rooted in stolen land, calmly passes judgement, “It’s impossible to remove the settlers from here, as long as they believe in the Bible.  The solution to the conflict will be for the media to stop encouraging the Arabs’ uprising and encourage them to live together with the Jews.”

So, I guess it’s all the media’s fault.  Too many reporters agitating the hapless Palestinians who, apparently, aren’t able to think for themselves.

But it’s hard for anyone “to live together” with the marauders who invaded your property, taken control of your home, pushed you out, made you homeless, and then warns you repeatedly not to put down new roots whenever you try to make a new start.

Another American volunteer confirms the Zionist prejudice that all Palestinians are violent agitators:

“Last February a number of [volunteers in an illegal settlement] found themselves in the midst of a clash between settlers and Palestinians near Har Bracha. According to them, Palestinians from the nearby village of Iraq Burin attacked them with stones while they were in the vineyard.

“The Har Bracha security coordinator came and fired on the Palestinians, who say they were defending their lands, wounding a shepherd.”

But, of course, the American visitor never bothered to learn the first thing about the history of this conflict.  He certainly does not know why he is helping these settlers to break international law.  He knows nothing about the resident Palestinians who have long depended on this very piece of land for their own livelihoods.  He has never ventured beyond the walls and electrified fence surrounding his settlement. He certainly has never asked a Palestinian about the difficulties of living under military occupation while watching strangers pick fruit from your soil.

As with most western accounts, there is no back-story; the narrative begins ex nihilo with a “Palestinian attack” that comes out of nowhere, seemingly for no reason.  It’s just another story about those pesky Injuns doin’ what Injuns do best.  Makin’ trouble, hinderin’ the advance of western civilization.

Christian Zionists are remarkably incurious people, by and large.  Rarely do they ask if the Palestinians might have a good reason to be angry.  If they did, they would hear stories about the many previous assaults launched against them by Israeli soldiers and the very settlers they are now helping to protect.

They might also stop to think about why they are helping Israel do for Jews in the Middle East what Hitler hoped to do for ethnic Germans in eastern Europe.

I encourage you to take a few moments to check out these articles for yourself.

Discover Why Pro-Israel/Zionist Groups Fought to Stop You from Seeing This Documentary

President Trump speaking at the annual AIPAC convention in Washington, D.C.

I recently watched the four-part documentary about the pro-Israel lobby in this country called (of all things!) “The Lobby.”

Produced by Aljazeera, “The Lobby” goes undercover to explore the inner workings of pro-Zionist lobbying organizations such as AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and The Israel Project in the United States.

The Electronic Intifada logo

I encourage you to watch this eye-opening – actually, jaw-dropping – investigative report here at The Electronic Intifada.

The Israel lobby worked very hard to suppress this film and ensure that it would never appear on Western television.  For a time, they had succeeded.  You can read a bit of that story on the film’s webpage.  Once you watch this fine example of investigative journalism, you will understand why the Israel lobby was so determined to keep it buried forever.

How would you respond to learning that a foreign government was spying of you?  Yes, spying on you, personally.

Among other disturbing facts detailed in “The Lobby”, is the story of how the Israel lobby hires domestic spies to monitor the political activities of American citizens, including your use of social media, your voting record, political contributions and activism.  They note anything that appears to be anti-Zionist, anti-Israel and then send that information to the Israeli government.

At the heart of the Israel lobby’s propaganda strategy is the deliberate confusion of ant-Zionism with anti-Semitism.  Consequently, pro-justice,

BDS the New Antisemitism

pro-Palestinian, anti-apartheid activism is tarred with the scurrilous brush of anti-Semitism.  An utterly nonsensical confusion.  But, sadly, it often works.

If the powers-that-be feel you are sufficiently “threatening” to their pro-Zionist message in America, you may be targeted; victimized by a smear campaign, character assassination or any number of dirty tricks the pro-Israel lobby keeps in its propaganda arsenal.

University students, professors and even regular folks involved in the BDS movement are typical targets for the Israel lobby’s dirty tricks.

“The Lobby” highlights the personal stories of several activists who have suffered the hurtful consequences of these attacks.

If any other nation on earth were spying and attacking American citizens as extensively and as habitually as Israel, it would be front page news, complete with public denunciations and televised Senate hearings up the wazoo.

You will also learn about the political manipulation, money laundering, illegal campaign contributions, as well as AIPAC’s influence on U.S. foreign policy, all financed by one or another of the tentacles comprising the Israel lobby in this country.

The film is long.  Each of the four episodes is about 50 minutes.  But it is well worth your time.

Nabi Saleh, The Toughest Little Village You Probably Have Never Heard Of

Terry and I stepped off the bus and walked to the small gathering area beneath a few shade trees.  It was still morning but you could already feel that it was going to be another hot day.

We sat on one of the village’s shaded benches and waited for others to arrive.  It did not take long.  Soon we were joined by a handful of international supporters who came, like us, to link arms with the residents of Nabi Saleh, a small Palestinian village in the central-western portion of the West Bank.  (A great deal has been written about Nabi Saleh, much of it malicious and false.  For some introduction, check out here, here and here).

Every Friday morning a small group of villagers, together with whoever else wants to come along, attempt to walk down the narrow, one-lane road

Do these people look like dangerous terrorists to you?

offering the only access to their homes.  It is also the only paved access to the nearby spring that historically served as the village’s primary water supply.

The spring is owned by the Tamimi family, an extended network of men, women and children who compose a sizeable portion of the village. The spring at the foot of the hill has been in their family for generations.

Not anymore.

The Nabi Saleh spring

A Jewish settlement now “occupies” the Nabi Saleh spring, making it inaccessible to their Palestinian neighbors across the road.

The settlement is called Halamish.  It now occupies the neighboring hillside, easily overshadowing the  village of Nabi Saleh only a stone’s throw away.

According to international law, settlements like Halamish should not exist.  They are prohibited by the international convention on apartheid.  But people who build such illegal, fortified settlements and then live in them

The illegal settlement of Halamish

while stealing the neighbors’ only water supply obviously do not care about such niceties as international law or anti-apartheid conventions.

Israeli-Jewish settlers often don’t even care about Israeli law, since the Israeli supreme court has, on rare occasions, also ruled against these West Bank settlements.  In fact, Jewish settlers in the West Bank are notorious for committing the most egregious, violent acts against Palestinians with total impunity.

On this particular Friday morning, our march began with 30 to 40 people, mostly villagers, including many children and young people.  Our only armaments were flags and banners, though a few teenage boys eventually pulled out their sling-shots and began throwing rocks after the Israeli soldiers arrived and began pelting us with tear gas.

This march has happened every Friday for years.  The goal is very simple.  The villagers want to walk down to their spring, affirming their right of access.  The village leaders want to talk with the people of Halamish and ask them by what right they not only took over their water supply but now exclude Palestinians from using it.

That goal has never been achieved, to my knowledge.  What happened to us happens every week.  In fact, we got off easy.  We hadn’t walked more than

Soldiers begin to block the road

20 yards before several military vehicles appeared from nowhere, sped onto the village road and blocked the intersection about 75 yards away.  Dozens of soldiers armed with automatic rifles and tear gas launchers jumped from armored personnel carriers and fanned out in a long line.  Troops not only blocked the road but watched us from the nearby hills ensuring that we all were targets wherever we went.

Soon the tear gas canisters began to fall among the unarmed, peaceful

Shooting tear gas

demonstrators who only wanted to walk to a spring.  In Israel it is a crime for Palestinian villagers to visit and take a drink from their only source of drinking water, a spring that refreshed their parents, grandparents and great grandparents as far back as anyone can remember.

For Zionist Israel, Palestinians pose a threat by their mere existence.  Israeli’s commonly refer to them as the “demographic” or the “existential” threat to Israel.  For political Zionists, Israel can only exist as a purely Jewish state.  Thus, all Palestinians must go, one way or another.  Allowing them to drink from a traditional pool of water is, apparently, a slippery slope to another Holocaust.  Or so it would seem.

The march came to a halt.  I suspect that we got just about as far as it has ever gotten.  We were barely out of the village.  Yet, we had been quarantined as if we were a dangerous band of Typhoid Marys threatening to unleash an unstoppable epidemic among the Jewish population beyond.

Who is David and who is Goliath now?

I decided to walk forward in order to talk to the soldiers.  Behind me teenage boys began to swing their slingshots at the soldiers in the same way that David felled Goliath.  The villagers knew how to protect themselves against the gas.  Most of the younger children returned to their homes.  There were no guns or weapons of any kind, except those carried by the Israelis.

When I was close enough I shouted out to the soldiers, “Why?  Why are you doing this?  They only want to walk to their spring!”

The soldiers, including this boy with peach fuzz, act as if I am invisible

After first shouting at me to go back, they all decide to ignore me.  No one so much as turned his head to look when I yelled.  I suspected that these soldiers had plenty of experience in ignoring western visitors coming to protest the grotesque inhumanity they show towards their fellow human beings.  It was my own up close and personal experience of the stone-cold poker face Israel has cultivated over the years as it consistently ignores the numerous protests, boycotts and complaints lodged against it by members of the international community still possessing a conscience.

The tires begin to burn

I am certain that had I not been such an obvious western visitor, one of these soldiers would have shot me in the head or chest without a second thought.  The families of Nabi Saleh have grieved many times over the dead and wounded loved ones who have been shot on that single-track

road leading to Halamish.

Chest and head shots are the soldiers’ favorites.

It wasn’t long before a few young men had set tires on fire in front of the marchers, masking them from the line of fire.  The black smoke obscures the soldiers’ vision so that, hopefully, fewer tear gas canisters hit their target.

Slowly the marchers began to disperse.  I turned back to the village.  The soldiers eventually climbed into their armored vehicles and drove

Soldiers and a manned sniper tower keep watch over the only road into Nabi Saleh

away, though the small installation with its sniper tower at the end of the road remained occupied, guns always pointed at the people of Nabi Saleh.

I also knew that the villagers who marched that day would steel themselves against the threat of after-dark raids by these very same soldiers.  Who might be arrested or shot or thrown into the back of a truck conveying them to the local military prison for interrogation?

(Below is a film showing a military night-raid in Nabi Saleh.  Protesters are arrested and removed from their homes while a skunk wagon sprays skunk water into their homes).

It happens regularly.

While waiting for our bus Terry and I met Bassem Tamimi, one of the village leaders and the father of (now internationally known) Ahed Tamimi, whom I will write about another day.  Mr. Tamimi kindly invited us into his home for tea where he talked about his life, his wife and children, his village, and his commitment to continued peaceful resistance against Israel’s military occupation and continued theft of his property.

I wondered how many of the residents of Halamish kept their binoculars near the window sill in order to watch Mr. Tamimi’s weekly efforts to visit his family spring.  I suspect that the struggles of Nabi Saleh makes for interesting sport among these settlers.

Do they cheer when the soldiers arrive, screeching to a halt in their massive gray machines?

Did they root for the men shooting at us?

Do they shout when someone is hit and injured, as so many have been in the past?

Does anyone in Halamish ever stop to ask themselves, Why did we take their water away from them?  Why can’t we share it with Nabi Saleh, or even give it back to the villagers outright?

Does anyone in Halamish have conscience enough to see their neighboring Palestinians as people no different than themselves?

These are some of the questions I pondered as I sat with Terry on Bassem Tamimi’s couch, waiting for his wife to finish making our tea.  We enjoyed a friendly conversation that day with a generous man and his wife whose primary concern in life is ensuring that his children and grandchildren will have a safe, peaceful future to look forward to in the family village.

Why does that make him a criminal in his own land?

Why should asking for a safe, peaceful future in his own home put his family at risk every Friday morning in the Occupied Territory of the West Bank?

Take a moment to watch Ahed Tamimi describe her life in Nabi Saleh, a tiny Palestinian village under Israeli military occupation:

A Prayer Request and More Praise for My Book, I Pledge Allegiance

Like most authors, I always appreciate receiving feedback from my readers.  I am especially grateful whenever I hear a story about how my work has stirred positive transformation and been encouraging to someone, especially when that someone is trying to follow Jesus faithfully.

Below I have copied a very kind note I recently received from a minister who has read my newest book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America (Eerdmans, 2018).

Thank you, pastor, for taking the time to be an encouragement to me:

“At the recommendation of [a] long-time friend and former parishioner… I just finished reading….for the second time…your book, “I Pledge Allegiance”. All I can say, David, is THANK YOU!!! You’ve helped me find some renewed sense of balance in what it means to live in this country at this time as a follower of Jesus. Having just recently retired from parish ministry… I’m aware of how often I waffled, especially in my preaching. There are times when I experience guilt and wish I could begin again to deal in a better way with the influences of congregants. And then there are those times when I’m grateful that I made it through without getting kicked out. The events of this past week put me into an even deeper depression. However, your insights and reminders have helped me immensely. Again, thank you!! And, please, keep writing. David”

In response to this man’s last sentence, let me say that I am trying to continue my writing.  But I am facing a few obstacles.  I mention this because, if you are a praying person, I could use your prayers about my next (possible) writing project.

I want to write a book about both(1)  the theological problems of Christian Zionism and (2) the human suffering entangled with American evangelicalism’s blind support for the nation of Israel.  The book will be half Biblical theology and half real-life stories.

The theology sections will explain the serious errors of “Christian Zionism” (i.e. those who believe that modern Israel is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in need of the church’s, and America’s, wholehearted support).

The real life stories will describe graphic instances of Palestinian suffering and abuse that I have witnessed first-hand during my visits to the West Bank area (captured by the Israeli army during the 1967 war and kept under military occupation ever since).

My proposal for this book has now passed over a number of publisher’s desks.  One publisher said (I am paraphrasing), “Dave, we think this would be a good book, but your previous books haven’t been great sellers for us.  We don’t think we’d make much money from this one, either.”

Four other well-known publishing houses have all said something similar, “David, we like and agree with your proposal.  We think this would me a good book, but we can’t figure out how we would sell it.  Sorry.  Good luck.”

Needless to say, I am a bit frustrated and disappointed.  So, I would very much appreciate your prayers as I try to figure out where next to send the proposal.  I firmly believe this book needs to be written.

Otherwise, perhaps I am at the end of my writing career.  I hope not, but who knows.