Robert Wolfe in The New England Review:
“Tuchman, in Bible And Sword, saw a connection between Protestantism, rejection of Papal authority and Christian Zionism.
As she put it on page 80, Wherever the Reformation took hold the Bible replaced the Pope as the final spiritual authority. The Palestinian origins of Christianity were stressed more and more in order to reduce the pretensions of Rome
The Masons too claimed “Palestinian origins,” and pre-Christian ones at that. Their focus on the rebuilding of the Temple could and did align them even more closely with the Jews than non-Masonic Protestants. But it would prove little to put together a list of all the Masons who associated themselves with the Zionist concept in some way. Such a list would be difficult to compile in any case due to the extreme reluctance of historians of Zionism to look into the Masonic connection.
This reluctance is a natural reaction to the anti-Semitic charges of a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy.
[Lila: Which makes me suspect that indeed there is some factual basis to the “conspiracy”…]
Zionism certainly
[Lila: What is certain about this?]
did not grow out of a conspiracy, whether Judeo-Masonic or any other. It was a broadly based movement rooted in 3000 years of Jewish history
[Lila: Where is the proof?]
The question is rather whether Judeo-Masonic thought tended to create a favorable context for the success of the Zionist movement. This question clearly has to be answered in the affirmative.
[Lila: Aha. So the preceding paragraph was simply to distance himself from any charge of anti-Semitism, while admitting that the “anti-Semites” do indeed have evidence for their assertions!]
That Freemasonry was inherently favorable to Zionism is suggested by the fact that the three main supporters of the Zionist movement in modern times, England, France and the United States, were also the three main centers of Freemasonry. In the United States, today Israel’s strongest supporter, at least 13 Presidents have been Freemasons, including Harry Truman, who was responsible for United States recognition of Israel in 1948.
Freemasonry helped to create a receptive climate for Zionism by its legitimation of Judaism, by its association with movements for national independence and above all by its focus on the Temple. Although this focus could be interpreted in many different ways, it was difficult to resist the implication that the Jews would have to participate in some manner in the rebuilding of the Temple. This view in turn conditioned Freemasons to accept the Zionist movement when it arose among Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries. Zionism was in no sense their creation
[Lila: But it’s clear from the historical record that Zionism did spring out of Masonic conspiracy]
but without their aid its success would have been considerably less likely.
The Temple
That the Temple was central to Freemasonry from the start is shown by Stevenson in “The Origins Of Freemasonry.” After a thorough examination of the few references to Freemasonry in 17th century Scottish texts, Stevenson concluded that the early Scottish lodges were consecrated to the memory of the Temple. He put it this way, on page 149:
The lodge of the early Scottish masons was clearly intended to be Solomon’s Temple. It does not seem to have been mentally furnished with the pillars of the temple, but they were present through the use of their names as secret words, and the references to the lodge being orientated like the temple and to the first lodge having been held in the temple porch help stress this identification – as does the grave of Hiram, the temple’s architect. This being the case, the “work” to which the master puts the masons in the lodge was presumably regarded as symbolising the building of the temple. In the religious literature of the day “building the Temple” was frequently used as a synonym for building the new Jerusalem, the creation of a true godly community.
Stevenson’s testimony is all the more suggestive in that it never occurred to him that this focus on the Temple might have derived from the Templars. Stevenson also had no interest in a Jewish connection, but noted on page 133 that a 1689 Scottish text referred to the “Mason Word” as a “Rabbinical mystery.” Stevenson theorized that “as the words of the Mason Word were connected with Solomon’s Temple it was natural to connect their use with Jewish tradition.”
The point about the Temple is that it symbolized not only “the creation of a true godly community” but also it was built at the height of the power and prestige of the kingdom of Judah and it survived only so long as the Jewish people was able to defend it.
Physical force was also the main concern of the Templars, who were a military order who engaged in constant military training. Physical force was also a prominent element in Masonic culture, as shown by the long list of generals and other military men who were Masons. It is just this point which makes Robinson’s theory of the origins of the Freemasons so plausible. Wat Tyler’s rebellion was also an expression of physical force, and one which was remarkably well organized and destructive. It is hard to understand how a group of neo-Platonic mystics could have given rise to most of the great revolutionary movements of the 18th and 19th centuries, but it is easy to see how a radical underground formed by ex-Templars might have done so.
The moral of the story is that the Temple matters. The modern Zionist movement paid little attention to the issue of the Temple, and yet it has continually surfaced all the same. The seizure of the Temple Mount by the Israeli armed forces during the Six Day War in 1967 was viewed by many as a dream come true. Since 1967 Israel has marked time, retaining physical control of the Temple Mount but leaving its administration entirely in the hands of Muslim authorities. Forty years have elapsed in this manner, but forty years are but a moment in the 3000 year history of the Temple and its legend. Sooner or later the issue of the Temple will have to be addressed. Who will decide its future – Jews, Muslims, Christians, the United Nations? To me it appears equally inconceivable that the Temple Mount will remain entirely Muslim or that an entirely Jewish “Third Temple” will replace the existing Islamic structures. Some compromise will have to be devised, but what this compromise might be no one really knows. One thing is for sure the Judeo-Masonic concept of the rebuilding of the Temple remains very much alive, and much depends on how this concept will be translated into practice in the years to come. “