The anti-anti-Semitism of Israel Lobby organizations like the ADL
tends to serve as a distraction from the evil that Zionists planned
and committed in murdering Arab Palestine and in driving out the
native population. Such Zionist behavior is clearly comparable to Nazi
goals for Eastern Europe. The evil is less well-known that Zionism
created in forcing DPs (Displaced Persons) to settle against their
will in the State of Israel after WW2 and in inciting Arab Muslim
hostility toward Arab Jewish communities, which were ultimately
destroyed as a result of Zionist crimes in Palestine. But the most
insidious evil of Zionism from the standpoint of America lies in
inspiring the alliance of American Zionists, Neoconservatives and
Neoconfederates. These political factions have joined together in a
commitment to maintain a racist Jewish colony in Palestine by means of
the brutal oppression and suppression of the native population.
American Zionists are mostly inspired by misguided feelings of guilt
and a confused need for atonement. But they have chosen an incorrect
method of satisfying this need because giving Zionists a license to
commit the sorts of crimes against native Palestinians that Nazis
committed against European Jews is a completely mistaken form of
expiation. American Zionists only succeed in supporting Zionist crimes
against humanity in Palestine and in becoming a major driving force
for anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice in the USA.
Neoconservatives are intellectual descendants and often the
blue-stripe diaper babies of American Revisionists or Jabotinskians.
They argue for a muscular American Empire so that Israel can serve as
a middleman or colonial surrogate for the USA in the Middle East just
as their forbears claimed a Jewish colony in Palestine could serve the
British Empire. Neoconservatives thrive on the disorder that the
presence of Israel creates, for they want the USA to treat the symptom
by interfering with Arab governments, invading Arab countries and by
stationing troops in the Middle East. Neoconservatives absolutely
reject any idea of doing away with one of the major causes of Middle
East turbulence by forcing the State of Israel to renounce Zionist
racism and to make full restitution for Zionist crimes against the
native population.
Neoconfederates are white Apocalyptic Evangelical Fundamentalists.
They are the most bizarre block of the supporters for Israel and
really require a separate study. Intellectually they are the
descendants of racist unrepentant and unreconstructed Southern
Confederates, who turned to religion with the defeat of the
Confederacy. They found spiritual solace in Premillennial
Dispensationalism particularly in the form espoused by the Moody Bible
Institute and Cyrus Ingerson Scofield. They believe that the creation
of Israel in the 1947-8 murder of Arab Palestine is a genuine sign of
the beginning of the End of Time. Because they believe they have a
realized eschatology, they are completely irrational and think
mythographically. They are extremely dangerous. (See Notes below.)
This unholy political union that is centered on the State of Israel
brings together ideologies of racism, racist colonialism, prejudice,
bigotry, social intolerance, religious intolerance, social Darwinism,
biological determinism, imperialism, millennialism, extremist
nationalism, contempt for democracy and contempt for human rights.
Never has there been anything closer in the USA to a genuine American
Nazism. Defeating this sort of politics is absolutely necessary for
the salvation of American democracy and will require a long-term
effort with careful planning.
Notes
Because I have not had the time or resources fully to research the
issues described in the following, the material below should be
considered more a hypothesis of connections and relationships, but I
have read a lot of the material available here in the Boston area, and
I believe there is a good deal of support for the hypothesis, and the
hypothesis suggests other areas of investigation (e.g., it helps
explain the attitudes of people like Krauthammer toward affirmative
action) and has -- I believe -- some predictive value.
I attended the following discussion at the Wellesley Hillel last
semester.
"Evangelical Christians, Jews and Israel." Speaker: Stephen Marini,
religion. Tuesday, April 8, 2003, 12:30-1:30 pm, Hillel Lounge.
Sponsor: Hillel. Info: x4088.
Marini makes the distinction between eschatological fundamentalists
and chiliastic fundamentalists. I call them apocalyptics and
literalist fundamentalists. Apocalyptics believe that the End is
immanent while literalist fundamentalists accept as a matter of
intrinsic belief that the Christian millennium will arrive one day and
that they must order their life accordingly.
It was quite interesting. He tied in modern American eschatological
fundamentalism to the tail end of the 2nd Great Awakening and the
Millerites, a connection of which I was unaware, but which makes sense.
A good book on the Millerites is The Disappointed, edited by Butler
and Numbers.
The original Millerite fundamentalist eschatology identified 1843 as
the year the end would begin. Obviously, it did not happen, and then
they tried again for a date in 1844, and it also did not happen at the
later date. Faced with the failure of their calculations, they
developed the idea that on the 1844 date, Jesus began to construct the
temple in heaven -- a claim not subject to verification.
This sort of eschatological fundamentalism continued to play an
important role in American religion straight through the 19th century.
Dwight Moody's premillennialist dispensationalism is an important
example. He created the "Moody Bible Institute, which became one of
the most important training grounds for evangelical pastors and
trained lay people." The 1909 Scofield Reference Bible incorporated
and popularized much of Moody's theology, and "became the standard
version for many evangelicals" (viz Epic Encounters by Melani
McAlister).
[You might want to check out "Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, Author of the
Scofield Reference Bible"
(http://www.cc-vw.org/articles/scofield1.html) , which is a chapter in
Stephen Sizer's doctoral thesis, Christian Zionism: Its History,
Theology and Politics
(http://www.cc-vw.org/articles/articles.html#ChristianZionism).]
The Fundamentals, A Testimony to the Truth, by Torrey, A.C. Dixon and
Others (1909) is a basic book of American Fundamentalist
Evangelicalism.
Premillennial Dispensationalist theology appealed in particular to a
subset of unreconstructed and unrepentant racist Confederates and
their descendants. They saw the destruction and the humiliation of the
South as the premillennial tribulation. Darby's premillennial
dispensationalist theology identifies a dispensation of the Jews,
which will take place in Palestine, and a dispensation for white
American fundamentalist evangelicals. Premillennial dispensationalists
interpret evidence of truth of this Jewish dispensation as support for
the "Neoconfederate" dispensation by analogy.
"In their fascination with the Holy Land as the once and future site
of God's action in history, these early twentieth-century evangelicals
were to become the spiritual inspiration for the fundamentalist turn
to Israel nearly a century later, in the 1970s and 1980s." (Vide
McAlister.) These Neoconfederates take the Zionist conquest and
suppression of the native population of Palestine as a sign by analogy
that they will be able as part of their dispensation to subordinate
American non-white and non-Anglo populations.
Marini explained that during the 20th century fundamentalists peaked
in the 20s. I would argue that they were coasting during the time
period from Bryan's departure from Wilson's cabinet as a matter of
principle until Clarence Darrow humiliated Bryan (a prairie populist
not a Neoconfederate) during the Scopes Monkey Trial.
During this time period, Mencken was quite effectively scorning and
deriding everything about the fundamentalist evangelical movement.
Fundamentalism came back stronger in cycles during the 50s, 70s and
90s. George W. Bush is their poster boy because he was a 40-year-old
substance abuser that had a vision of God and turned his life around
(not unlike the apostle Paul). He prays to God before every major
decision. I believe I have read that Bush still has the occasional
vision or conversation with the divine. (Acid flashbacks?)
Marini did not actually know the tie-in with Jabotinsky's faction of
the Zionist movement, which is the predecessor of Herut (Freedom -
Begin's), Gahal and then the Likud (Alliance - Sharon and Netanyahu's)
Israeli parties. (The unfamiliarity is not surprising, for Marini is a
specialist in 18th and 19th century American religious history.)
I discussed it with him outside after the talk.
During the early 1900s Jabotinsky co-opted a lot of the religious
Zionists to his faction. Jabotinsky was a highly Russianized Ashkenazi
from Odessa. Because one cannot simply become Russian (Russki) but at
best can only be Russianized (Rossitski) if one's ancestry is not Rus,
he fell into Zionism. Because he was so far from religion, he actually
got along very well with many religious Zionists, who did not mind him
as much as they did Zionists, who were closer to religious Judaism and
more actively rejected it.
In his private opinion, which can be found in Jabotinsky's Russian
writings, Jabotinsky considered the religious Zionists to be idiots
that had lots of energy and were infinitely manipulatable.
In the 1920s Jabotinsky came to the USA to found American Revisionism,
which is to a large extent the origin of the Neoconservative movement.
During the late 1920s he and his followers established their fist
contacts with American fundamentalists. He considered them just as
much idiots and as manipulatable as the Jewish religious Zionists.
As I noted above, the American fundamentalists were in decline at this
point, and they were becoming a national joke. Movies from this time
period tend to reflect the contempt with which fundamentalist
evangelicalism was treated after the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Jabotinsky and his followers, who included Benzion Netanyahu,
Binyamin's father, Rabbi Korf -- later Nixon's advisor and confident
-- and Bergson, a nephew of Rav Kook, who at the time was the
spiritual leader of the Religious Zionist movement, helped to
revitalize American fundamentalism by directing them toward Zionism
with a reinterpretation of the literalist fundamentalist
eschatological or chiliastic message within the framework Zionist
primordialism.
The Revisionist Zionists worked the fundamentalist movement straight
through the 30s under Jabotinsky's direction and then in the 40s under
Netanyahu's direction.
Under the American Revisionist reinterpretation of American
Fundamentalism, the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 is the
critical event that proves the truth of the eschatology. Thus
Christian Zionist eschatological (and many chiliastic) fundamentalists
believe they have a fully realized eschatology (something historically
unprecedented).
This belief in realized eschatology makes them very fanatic and
precludes most rational discussion.
The possession of a realized eschatology -- in their minds -- brought
about increased interest and the beginning of a renaissance in
American fundamentalism.
From the 50s onward the Israeli Revisionists continued to strengthen
their ties with American fundamentalists through frequent invitations
to Israel and a very politicized Biblical archeology, which also
helped to create ties between the fundamentalists and other parts of
the Zionist movement. The studios began to respond with blockbuster
religious films, which in turn sparked more interest in fundamentalist
religion. Cecile B. de Mille's Samson and Delilah, The Ten
Commandments, Quo Vadis and Ben Hur are examples. As increased ties
developed between fundamentalists and Zionist parties across the
political spectrum, through the 60s & 70s we see a growing Zionization
of the American fundamentalists. Hollywood seems to notice because the
Biblical Blockbuster is replaced at this time period by the Zionist
blockbuster.
With the ascent of fundamentalists in American politics, Zionists can
count on a 25-50 million-voter block in the USA. This voter block has
tremendous linkage to Neconservatism via the movement's original
incarnation as American Revisionism.
Where is H. L. Mencken when you need him? Unfortunately, he is dead
and buried in Baltimore. But this recrudescence of religious nuttiness
might even be too much for Mencken, for in comparison to the 20s the
fundamentalists are probably too strong to shame back under their
rocks.
I asked Marini if he thought the argument that I make to distinguish
among ancient Israelites, Greco-Roman Judeans and modern Ashkenazim
would be effective in dissociating American fundamentalists from
Right-wing Zionism. He rejects the idea because American
fundamentalists think mythographically from their eschatology, and
they believe the End has already begun. Note that they do not merely
live in a world of myth; they write (and rewrite) the myths by which
they understand the world to correspond to their understanding of the
End, which began in 1948 with the creation of the State of Israel.
They make very strange and bizarre connections between events.
They fit contemporary politics into their vision of the coming rapture
and apocalypse and then backwards rewrite the past to conform to their
vision of the future.
Thus, the facts are completely irrelevant, and they simply do not care
about any injustices done or being done to Palestinians because there
is a state named Israel in the ME, whose "Jewish" population can be
connected to the prophesies of Daniel, Ezekiel and the Revelation of
St. John.
References that you might wish to check out are:
Militant Zionism in America: The Rise and Impact of the Jabotinsky
Movement in the United States, 1926-1948 (Judaic Studies Series) by
Rafael Medoff and
Zionism and the Fin de Siècle: Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism from
Nordau to Jabotinsky by Michael Stanislawski.
You must read both cum grano salis. Rafael Medoff does not read
Russian and does not realize that Jabotinsky is lying when he pretends
devotion to democracy in English. Michael Stanislawski does read
Russian and does not make that particular error, but his world view is
somewhat distorted by Zionist indoctrination, and his analysis
sometimes reflects this Zionist bias and a certain ideological
exceptionalism that characterizes Jewish studies. Nevertheless, it is
probably the best English language intellectual historical analysis of
the beginnings of Zionism.
