Tag Archives: israel

Mitt Romney: Jerusalem Is Zionist and Jewish, not Christian Or Muslim

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itt Romney lands in his favorite country and declares for it (“In Israel, Romney declares Jerusalem to be capital,” AP, July 29):

“On Israeli soil, U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Sunday declared Jerusalem to be the capital of the Jewish state and said the United States has “a solemn duty and a moral imperative” to block Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability.

“Make no mistake, the ayatollahs in Iran are testing our moral defenses. They want to know who will object and who will look the other way,” he said. “We will not look away nor will our country ever look away from our passion and commitment to Israel.”

Comment:

“Since when do Presidential candidates stand on foreign soil and pledge to conduct U.S. foreign policy in accordance with the desires of the foreign government on whose soil they are standing?” asks the DailyKos correctly (https://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/29/1114809/-You-re-not-President-yet-Mitt).

You’ll notice this is the same position that Ron Paul has recently taken (“Ron Paul shocks campaign staff with new position on Israel,” Business, April 13, 2012).…. albeit for constitutional reasons.

Does that bother me? Yes, I admit it does, even though Dr. Paul’s reasoning is perfectly valid….if you use strictly ideological arguments and forget politics,  history, and prudence.

It’s one more piece of evidence that Dr. Paul’s non-interventionism is weighted in favor of  Zionism.

I blogged as much last year – Ron Paul’s Zionist non-interventionism.

The whole thing bothers me, even though the campaign manager quoted in the piece, Douglas Wead (here he is blogging on the subject) has a tendency, reportedly, to put his own spin on Paul’s statements or actions.

It also bothers me that Ron Paul’s chief legal advisor is Bruce Fein, who has an extensive background as a lobbyist for foreign governments ( “Def(e)ining choice: Bruce Fein, the Turkish Lobby, and the Ron Paul campaign,” Nanour Barsoumian, The Armenian Weekly,January 20, 2012) that is completely at odds with Paul’s rhetoric against special interests.

I’ve blogged about Bruce Fein before and commented about him at other sites.

It was Bruce Fein who lobbied in support of US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, instead of as an international city, belonging equally to Islam, Christianity, and Judaism — which has been the position taken by the US State Department these many years (http://jerusalem.usconsulate.gov/about_the_embassy.html).

Sure, the State Dept. is left-leaning. But the left gets many things right, and I’m neither ideologically rigid enough nor partisan enough not to recognize when they do..

Last year, there was a seminal case that centered on whether a young Israeli-American dual citizen born in Jerusalem should have Jerusalem listed as his place of birth on his passport, or Israel. (“Court may rule on US stand on Jerusalem,” Barbara Ferguson and Tim Kennedy, Arab News, May 12, 2011)

The State Department  resisted all appeals from the parents and the case went to the Supreme Court, which decided in favor of having Israel on his passport, thereby setting a precedent for any judge who wants to overthrow US foreign policy from the bench.

That’s how the New World Order Works. Through judicial fiat.

The red-herring that constitutionalists dangle before everyone is the overweening power of the President and the constitutional limits that need to be set on it. That’s all very well and perfectly true,  except, again, the devil is in the details.

Who sets limits on Congress and the judiciary, both bribed and bought by  Zionists?

The media?

Also owned by Zionists.

It’s Zionists all the way down.

While the Paul/Rothbard anarcho-capitalist philosophy rails against secretive government and  executive over-reaching, you’ll notice that it also equates all commercial advertising and political donations with free speech.

Murray Rothbard, the principal intellect behind the hybrid movement,  also defended the decriminalization of bribery and blackmail. See M.N. Rothbard, Man, Economy and State, 443 n. 49, 1993, (http://mises.org/books/mespm.pdf).

Whom does that help? The Zionist financiers who buy  Congress and bribe and bully the Judiciary.

So, what the left hand (constitutionality) giveth, the right hand (anarcho-capitalism) taketh away.

Using the letter of the law to circumvent its spirit is legalism.

Depending on which sect of conspiracy theory you favor, you can blame this on Jesuitical or Talmudic casuistry… or on perfidious Albion.

I prefer more academic terminology. Like, phony-baloney.

You notice I didn’t use the politically correct terminology, which would be “pro-Israeli” Congress and “pro-Israeli” President.  Because Israel, the nation-state, is only one part of this and because nation-states seem to be slated for demolition in the near future.

Israel  is the cockpit, but not the whole plane.

If the Zionists want something, they can get it equally through extra-legal means or the most snow-white constitutionality. Paul’s constitutionalism, however well-meaning, has acted as nothing more than window-dressing.

I don’t think he can be blamed for it. It may not be something he or anyone can really help.

But it’s lesson should be clear.

Politics is not only not the answer. At this point, it is a diabolical diversion.

Rand Paul: Welshing On No Aid To Israel?

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If I were a young libertarian who’d emptied my wallet into Rand Paul’s campaign, I’d  be painting his face on the basement wall and throwing darts at it, especially after the recent revelation at Liberty Fight about Rand Paul’s apparent silence on the $9 billion dollars in aid guarantees to Israel.

That’s after Rand spent the whole of 2011 (just google) swearing he’d cut aid to Israel. It’s not 100 percent clear what happened with the vote, some are making excuses and giving plausible explanations,  but at this stage of the game,  it doesn’t look good.

Also, one thing that seems to have missed comment is that the Senate summary of the bill specifies support for Israel as a “Jewish state,” not just once, either. Delete Israel and substitute, say, “Malaysia as a Muslim state,” and then you’ll get how just preposterous business-as-usual in DC is.

Not only is this vast sum of tax-payer money going to a foreign government (that’s all aid is anyway), it’s going to a form of government that runs counter to something the Constitution stands for – the US is against a state establishment of religion.

Meanwhile, the same people who applaud “Israel as a Jewish state” every day of the week will foam at the mouth and bark like rabid dogs if someone suggests that the US is a Christian state or that India is a Hindu state.

The h*** with Rand.

Stuxnet: A Chronology (Ongoing)

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October 2, 2010

The NY Times now backtracks, claiming that Israeli cyber warfare experts are “too smart” to leave a clue behind. Thus..by inference…it must be a country that wants to implicate Israel, which..by inference…is Iran (surprise).  Too clever by half, these folks. Another reason I believe Israel or an Israeli-backed team is behind Stuxnet is the fact that Wikileaks apparently had a reference to a possible nuclear “accident” in Iran in July 2009. That is around the time when some researchers argue Stuxnet infections first began.

October 2, 2010

Jeffrey Carr backs off from the allegation that Israel is the culprit, claiming that Ralph Langner was the sole source of the allegation and was irresponsible in posting it on his blog as though it were the opinion of the intelligence community. Carr quotes an earlier piece of his, along with these words:

“Last week I wrote about how the Israel-Iran conspiracy theory around the Stuxnet worm was built entirely on one security engineer’s personal conjecture (Ralph Langner) with absolutely no weighing of alternative possibilities for attribution, nor any objective assessment of the evidence.”

However, if you click on the earlier piece he cites, he wrote nothing of the sort in it. Nowhere in that piece did Carr claim that Langner was the sole source of the allegation; he quotes the NY Times as noting several people who’d reached the same conclusion. Also, there is no hint in the piece that he considered Langner’s allegation speculative or poorly founded. He cited it instead as a likely possibility. This is clear back-pedaling, probably provoked by the fear that the story might lead to a crackdown on Iranian dissidents and foreigners. Well, of course it will. But that’s not the fault of journalists reporting on the story. Or of Ralph Langner, who clearly states on his blog that he is “speculating” (see previous link).

The fault lies with the unknown cybercriminal/s who came up with Stuxnet.

“Stuxnet Speculation Fuels Crackdown By Iranian Intelligence,” Jeffrey Carr, The Firewall, Forbes, October 2, 2010/

*October 1, 2010

[See “Clues Emerge About Genesis Of Stuxnet Worm,” CS Monitor, October 1, 2010]

*October 1, 2010

[“Israel: Smart Enough To Create Stuxnet; Stupid Enough To Use It” War In Context, Oct. 1, 2010]

*October 1, 2010

Cryptome is arguing that Israel would never have done anything so sloppy as what’s alleged. Could it be that some group is deliberately playing off one side against the other, that is, playing divide-and-conquer? Or is this more “plausible deniability”?

On looking back, I notice that one of the first people to launch the “Israel did it” allegation is one Richard Falkenrath, who works for the Chertoff Group (my emphasis).

That makes me wonder.

Here’s Cryptome:

“Really? Personally I’d be surprised if a crack team of Israeli software engineers were so sloppy that they relied on outdated rootkit technology (e.g. hooking the Nt*() calls used by Kernel32.LoadLibrary() and using UPX to pack code). Most of the Israeli developers I’ve met are pretty sharp. Just ask Erez Metula.

http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-usa-09/METULA/BHUSA09-Metula-ManagedCodeRootkits-
PAPER.pdf

“It may be that the “myrtus” string from the recovered Stuxnet file path

“b:\myrtus\src\objfre_w2k_x86\i386\guava.pdb” stands for “My-RTUs”

as in Remote Terminal Unit. See the following white paper from Motorola, it examines RTUs and PICs in SCADA systems. Who knows? The guava-myrtus connection may actually hold water.

http://www.motorola.com/web/Business/Products/SCADA%20Products/_Documents/Static%20Files/SCADA_
Sys_Wht_Ppr-2a_New.pdf

As you can see, the media’s propaganda machine is alive and well.”

I am completely out of my depth in the technical part of this. But not in the propaganda part.

As an instance of the way group conflicts can be set off, think of how during the financial crisis there were an inordinate number of Indians being trotted out to do the explaining…and taking the brunt of the public’s anger, although last I looked, despite a respectable number of Indian billionaires, the head honchos of the major banks (with one exception) and the biggest and most important speculators, managers, and  international officials were not Indian, to phrase it as politely as possible.

Setting race and nation each against other is of course the modus operandi of the power elite, and both Kashmir and Israel have played that divisive role in the past….and continue to do so.

*October 1, 2010

A link to an Examiner piece is coming up right at the top of a Google search of Stuxnet and Israel. With all due respect to the author, who probably thinks he/she is on the side of the angels and simply preempting an outburst of anti-Semitism by this effort, the piece is quite misleading….and, apparently, deliberately so, as an examination of the other links listed here, from a variety of  sources in the West (see this NY Times pieces) will prove.

For instance, the Examiner piece doesn’t cite the reports from many western security companies and research teams (see links below) that have extensively researched the issue, nor does it acknowledge that it was these sites that first advanced the claim that Israel/Israeli hackers were likely responsible. Instead, it cites a Times of India piece that republishes the claims.

The attempt, apparently, is to mislead the public into thinking that the allegation of Israeli involvement is one mainly advanced by untrustworthy foreigners with axes to grind (note the description “Iran’s friend, India”).

“Another of Iran’s friends, India, is pushing the notion that Israel did it. According to an http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com on Friday, “A Biblical reference has been detected in the code of the computer virus that points to Israel as the origin of the cyber attack.” It’s further explained that the word “myrtus” is in the code, and that this is a “reference to the myrtle tree”

In point of fact, it was western security companies and western researchers who came to that conclusion.  Moreover, the targets of the worm fit very well with Anglo-Zionist imperial objectives – covering as they do the largest Muslim populations in Asia.

[See “German Firm Employee May Have Created Stuxnet; Israel Blames.” Examiner.com, October 1, 2010

*September 30, 2010

Quote:

“Buried in Stuxnet’s code is a marker with the digits “19790509” that the researchers believe is a “do-not infect” indicator. If the marker equals that value, Stuxnet stops in its tracks, and does not infect the targeted PC. The researchers — Nicolas Falliere, Liam O Murchu and Eric Chen — speculated that the marker represents a date: May 9, 1979. While on May 9, 1979, a variety of historical events occurred, according to Wikipedia “Habib Elghanian was executed by a firing squad in Tehran sending shock waves through the closely knit Iranian Jewish community,” the researchers wrote. Elghanian, a prominent Jewish-Iranian businessman, was charged with spying for Israel by the then-new revolutionary government of Iran, and executed May 9, 1979.”

Quote:

“Last weekend, Iranian officials confirmed that tens of thousands of PCs in their country had been infected by Stuxnet, including some used at a nuclear power plant in southwestern Iran that’s planned to go online next month. The Symantec researchers also revealed a host of other Stuxnet details in their paper, including a “kill date” of June 24, 2012, after which the worm will refuse to execute.”

[See “Stuxnet Code Hints At Possible Israeli Origin, Researchers Say,” by Gregg Keizer, Symantec, Sept. 30, 2010]

*September 30, 2010

Symantec puts out a dossier of information on Stuxnet that includes the following:- attack scenario and timeline, infection statistics, malware architecture, description of all the exported routines, injection techniques and anti-AV, the RPC component, propagation methods, command and control feature, and the PLC infector.

Eric Chien summarizes findings about the worm:

“Only more recently did the general public realize Stuxnet’s ultimate goal was to sabotage an industrial control system.

Analyzing Stuxnet has been one of the most challenging issues we have worked on. The code is sophisticated, incredibly large, required numerous experts in different fields, and mostly bug-free, which is rare for your average piece of malware. Stuxnet is clearly not average. We estimate the core team was five to ten people and they developed Stuxnet over six months. The development was in all likelihood highly organized and thus this estimate doesn’t include the quality assurance and management resources needed to organize the development as well as a probable host of other resources required, such as people to setup test systems to mirror the target environment and maintain the command and control server.”

[See W32.Stuxnet Dossier, Eric Chien, Sept. 30, 2010]

*September 25, 2010

Quote:

The director of the Information Technology Council of the Industries and Mines Ministry has announced that the IP addresses of 30,000 industrial computer systems infected by this malware have been detected, the Mehr New Agency reported on Saturday. “An electronic war has been launched against Iran,” Mahmoud Liaii added.“This computer worm is designed to transfer data about production lines from our industrial plants to (locations) outside of the country,” he said.

[See “Iran Successfully Battling Cyber Attack,” Mehr News, Sept. 25, 2010]

*September 24, 2010

A piece in the Guardian suggests that a government agency is most likely behind the worm but warns against leaping to conclusions. It notes that many hackers/criminals might have become sophisticated enough to create a worm of this type. The piece notes that attacks against Iran have increased and that the identification of the worm was originally made by a Belarus security firm for an Iranian client and that Iran had been experiencing problems with their nuclear facility at Bushehr for months. It notes that the worm uses a stolen cryptographic key from the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer Realtek.

[See “Stuxnet Worm Is The Work Of A National Government Agency,” Josh Halliday, Guardian, Sept. 24, 2010]

“Stuxnet: The Trinity Test Of Cyberwarfare,” War In Context, Sept. 23, 2010

*September 16, 2010

Symantec researchers say that Stuxnet had to be created by a state, because it was the most devious and sophisticated malware they’d come across.

Quote:

“I don’t think it was a private group,” said O Murchu. “They weren’t just after information, so a competitor is out. They wanted to reprogram the PLCs and operate the machinery in a way unintended by the real operators. That points to something more than industrial espionage.”

The necessary resources, and the money to finance the attack, puts it out the realm of a private hacking team, O Murchu said.

“This threat was specifically targeting Iran,” he continued. “It’s unique in that it was able to control machinery in the real world.”

“All the different circumstances, from the multiple zero-days to stolen certificates to its distribution, the most plausible scenario is a nation-state-backed group,” said Schouwenberg, who acknowledged that some people might think he was wearing a tin foil hat when he says such things. But the fact that Iran was the No. 1 target is telling.”

[See “Is Stuxnet the Best Malware Ever?” Gregg Keizer, Symantec Security Response, Sept. 16, 2010]

*September 13, 2010

German computer security research Ralph Langner speculates that Stuxnet is part of cyberwar:

Ralph’s theory — completely speculative from here

“It is hard to ignore the fact that the highest number of infections seems to be in Iran. Can we think of any reasonable target that would match the scenario? Yes, we can. Look at the Iranian nuclear program. Strange — they are presently having some technical difficulties down there in Bushehr. There also seem to be indications that the people in Bushehr don’t seem to be overly concerned about cyber security. When I saw this screenshot last year (http://www.upi.com/News_Photos/Features/The-Nuclear-Issue-in-Iran/1581/2/) I thought, these guys seem to be begging to be attacked. If the picture is authentic, which I have no means of verifying, it suggests that approximately one and a half year before scheduled going operational of a nuke plant they’re playing around with software that is not properly licensed and configured. I have never seen anything like that even in the smallest cookie plant. The pure fact that the relevant authorities did not seem to make efforts to get this off the web suggests to me that they don’t understand (and therefore don’t worry about) the deeper message that this tells.

Now you may ask, what about the many other infections in India, Indonesia, Pakistan etc. Strange for such a directed attack. Than, on the other hand, probably not. Check who comissions the Bushehr plant. It’s a Russian integrator that also has business in some of the countries where we see high infection rates. What we also see is that this company too doesn’t seem to be overly concerned about IT security. As I am writing this, they’re having a compromised web site (http://www.atomstroyexport.com/index-e.htm) that tries to download stuff from a malware site that had been shut down more than two years ago (www.bubamubaches.info). So we’re talking about a company in nukes that seems to be running a compromised web presence for over two years? Strange.
I could give some other hints that have a smell for me but I think other researchers may be able to do a much better job on checking the validity of all this completely non-technical stuff. The one last bit of information that makes some sense for me is the clue that the attackers left in the code, as the fellows from Symantec pointed out — use your own imagination because you will think I’m completely nuts when I tell you my idea.

Welcome to cyberwar.”

[See “Stuxnet is a directed attack: hack of the century,” Ralph Langner]

*September 8, 2010

German computer security expert Ralph Langner writes to a friend:

Historical document: Ralph informs Joe Weiss what Stuxnet is. Note the date of the email.

*July 22, 2010

Symantec analyzed W32.Stuxnet as a worm that uses a  hitherto unknown Windows bug to attack and then searches the target for SCADA systems and design documents. SCADA is a network used to control utilities, transportation and other critical infrastructure. The worm then contacted Command &Control servers that control the infected machines and retrieved the stolen information. The servers were located in Malaysia and Symantec redirected traffic away from them to prevent the take-over of the information.

Within a 72 hours period Symantec identified close to 14,000 IP addresses infected with W32.Stuxnet trying to contact the C&C server. 58.85 % came from Iran, with the rest coming from Indonesia (18.22%), India (8.31%), with the Azerbaijan, US, and Pakistan making up the other affected countries, with under 2% each (this information is also provided at the Microsoft website).

[See Symantec Security Response,W32.Stuxnet – Network Information, Vikram Thakur, July 22, 2010]

*July 21, 2010

Quote:

“The zero-day vulnerability, rootkit, main binaries, stolen digital certificates, and in-depth knowledge of SCADA software are all high-quality attack assets. The combination of these factors makes this threat extremely rare, if not completely novel.“

Quote:

“The complexity and quality of the attack assets lead some to believe only a state would have the resources to conduct such an attack. However, the usage of the second digital certificate is a bit odd. One could make the case that once the first attack succeeded, a state would take cover and not waste the second digital certificate. Instead, by signing a very similar binary, security companies were immediately able to detect the second stolen certificate, making it useless in further compromises…..

Quote:

.. Hackers bound by a common cause may target another country, organization, or company that they feel are their enemies. Such hacking groups often have the patience and expertise to gather such attack assets. Further, their goals of continued attack may lead them to continue to refine their attack as they are thwarted or discovered, such as resigning their driver files with a newly stolen digital certificate, modifying their binaries to avoid security product detection, and moving their command-and-control hosts as they are decommissioned…..

Quote:

…..This scenario [terrorism] is like something out of movie and, while for most attacks we’d immediately dismiss this as a possibility, given the amount and quality of the attack assets, terrorism even seems within the realms of possibility in this case.“

[See “The Hackers Behind Stuxnet” by Patrick Fitzgerald, Symantec Security Response,  July 21, 2010]

*July 17, 2010

Researchers find that Stuxnet targets industrial control systems of the kind that control manufacturing and utility companies. It targets Siemens management software called Simatic WinCC, which runs on the Windows operating system.

The systems that run the Siemens software, called SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems, aren’t usually connected to the Internet, but the virus spreads when an infected USB stick is inserted. If it detects the Siemens software, the virus logs in using a default password.

[See “New Virus Targets Industrial Secrets,” Robert McMillan, Computer World, July 17, 2010]

*July 16, 2010

Symantec starts a blog series on the Stuxnet infection that continues through the summer and into September

[See also Microsoft Security Advisory, July 16, 2010 and Krebson Security, July 16, 2010]

*July 7, 2010

Stuxnet could well have caused the glitch in the solar panels of India’s Insat-4B satellite on July 7, 2010. That led to the shutting down of 12 out of 24 of the transponders and 70% of the customers dependent on Direct to Home (DTH) including those using Doordarshan (Indian TV), Sun TV and Tata’s VSNL. The customers were redirected to point to the Chinese satellite  ASIASAT-5, owned and operated by Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co., Ltd (AsiaSat) whose two main shareholders are General Electric (GE) and China International Trust and Investment Co. (CITIC), a state-owned company

[See “Did The Stuxnet Worm Kill India’s INSAT-4B Satellite?” by Jeffrey Carr, The Firewall, Forbes.com, Sept. 29, 2010]

*June 16, 2010

Symantec Security Response Team begins its investigation into the Stuxnet worm. The first sample dates from June 2010, but the team believes the worm dates back a year, or maybe even earlier.

*June 2010

The malware is first identified by a Belarus security company, Virusblokada, for its Iranian client.

[See Symantec Security Response, webpage, Sept 30, 2010]

*January 2010

Stuxnet infection begins, according to Symantec

*July 2009

Stuxnet infection begins, according to to Kasperksy

Alleged Israeli Agent Arrested Over January Killing Of Hamas Leader

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Raf Sanchez at Times Online June 12, 2010:

“An alleged Israeli agent wanted in connection with the killing of a Hamas leader in Dubai has been arrested in Poland.

A man using the name of Uri Brodsky is suspected of having supplied a fake German passport to a member of the Mossad assassin squad that was said to responsible for the slaying of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in January. German authorities issued a European-wide arrest warrant and he was picked up by Polish authorities earlier this week, said a spokesperson for the German federal prosecutor’s office which is seeking his extradition.”

Read the rest of this article at The Time Online (UK)

Mad Dogs Alert: Saudis To Give Israelis Airspace To Attack Iran

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Hugh Tomlinson at The Times Online, June 12, 2010:

“Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal.

In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran.

To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences will return to full alert.”

Read the rest of this article at The Times Online

Esau And Jacob In The Middle East

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From Rabbi Brian’s Blog:

“In one of the most poignant moments in the Torah, after Isaac tells Esau, his son, that his brother Jacob has stolen the blessing, Esau burst into wild and bitter sobbing and said to his father,

“Have you but one blessing? Bless me too, my father” (Genesis 26:38) Continue reading →

Strategies Of Tension

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The Daily Bell on the tensions between Israel and the world as an elite manipulation:

“The creation of the tiny theocratic state of Israel was not something that came about because of an upsurge in sentiment that such a state was needed. Even Dr. John Coleman, who has written a recent (fairly vituperative) history of the Rothschilds, explains that the Jewish state was an invention of the elites – especially the Rothschilds – not a movement that bubbled up from Jewish populations around the world. The book, written in 2007, certainly makes a case for the Rothschilds as the driving force in the political developments and wars of the 19th and 20th century, especially. The motivating idea – the goal – is one-world government, though Dr. Coleman does not spell out the linkage between the state of Israel itself and the larger issue of global governance. Continue reading →

Israeli’s Raid Gaza Aid Ships; Nine Dead; Massive Protests In Turkey

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AP reports on an Israeli raid on ships carrying aid to Palestine:

“JERUSALEM – Israeli naval commandos stormed a flotilla of ships carrying aid and hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists to the blockaded Gaza Strip on Monday, killing nine passengers in a botched raid that provoked international outrage and a diplomatic crisis.

Dozens of activists and six Israeli soldiers were wounded in the bloody predawn confrontation in international waters. The violent takeover dealt yet another blow to Israel’s international image, already tarnished by war crimes accusations in Gaza and its 3-year-old blockade of the impoverished Palestinian territory. Continue reading →

Israeli Historians, Politicians: Israel Was Never In Danger Of Extinction

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I’m indebted to Jeremy Hammond (author of the excellent piece, “The Simplicity of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”) for the compilation of these quotes:

“I know how at least 80 percent of all of the incidents there started. In my opinion, more than 80 percent, but let’s speak about 80 percent. It would go like this: we would send a tractor to plowin the demilitarized area, and we would know ahead of time that the Syrians would start shooting. Continue reading →

How the Scofield Bible Came to America

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An excerpt from “Zionism’s un-Christian Bible” by Maidhc A Cathail at Online Journal explains how one of the defining political doctrines of our time was fostered by the selective promotion of one heretical interpretation of the Bible.

Note: My comments are at the end under the heading, “My Comment”; the article is in light gray text; the quotes from the Bible have been underlined; the Bible commentary by Scofield and Hagee that the article cites are in italics, as are titles of books and reports; the quotes from all other authors, including Sizer, Adelman, and various newspapers, as well as subheadings, are bolded] :

“Central to Christian Zionist belief is Scofield’s commentary on Genesis 12:3. For the sake of clarity, Scofield’s notes have been italicized in the following passage:

“‘I will bless them that bless thee.’ [Bible]

In fulfilment closely related to the next clause [Scofield]

‘And curse him that curseth thee” [Bible]

Wonderfully fulfilled in the history of the dispersion. It has invariably fared ill with the people who have persecuted the Jew — well with those who have protected him. The future will still more remarkably prove this principle.” [Scofield]

Drawing on Scofield’s speculative interpretation, John Hagee claims,

“The man or nation that lifts a voice or hand against Israel invites the wrath of God.”[Hagee]

However, as Stephen Sizer points out, in his definitive critique, “Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon?”,

“The promise, when referring to Abraham’s descendants speaks of God blessing them, not of entire nations ‘blessing’ the Hebrew nation, still less the contemporary and secular State of Israel.” [Sizer]

Apparently unaware of this more orthodox reading, The New Scofield Study Bible, published by Oxford University Press in 1984, enhanced Scofield’s interpretation, by adding,

“For a nation to commit the sin of anti-Semitism brings inevitable judgment.”[Bible]

Reading such tendentious comments, a bible-believing Christian could easily assume, for example, that God will punish the 114 countries which endorsed the Goldstone Report.

Stephen Sizer writes,

“Sustained by a dubious exegesis of selective biblical texts, Christian Zionism’s particular reading of history and contemporary events . . . sets Israel and the Jewish people apart from other peoples in the Middle East . . . it justifies the endemic racism intrinsic to Zionism, exacerbates tensions between Jews and Palestinians and undermines attempts to find a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, all because ‘the Bible tells them so.’” [Sizer]

[Lila: I am not sure if I agree entirely with the statement that “racism is inherent to Zionism.” I have made a similar argument in “The Language of Empire,” (2005) but would like to qualify it, because of the special circumstances of the Jewish people in relation to European Christianity, as well as their relatively small numbers compared to the ethnic populations around them. However, those small numbers must be balanced against the enormous power wielded by Israel and its support by the US and UK government, as well as the corporate economic structure.

In sum, without demonizing Israel, it’s necessary to ask if its exceptionalist religious narrative – in which Zionism is inextricably intertwined – isn’t ripe for modification, the same modification that state Christianity underwent during the enlightenment (and thereafter), and that Islamicism is, rightfully,  being asked to undergo today].

The incredible Scofield

In his 2008 book, The Rise of Israel: A History of a Revolutionary State, Jonathan R. Adelman describes the crucial support Israel receives from Christian fundamentalists as “totally fortuitous.” The incredible career of the man who wrote “the Bible of Fundamentalism,” however, casts considerable doubt on that assertion.

Two years after Scofield’s reported conversion to Christianity in 1879, the Atchison Patriot was less than impressed. Describing the former Atchison resident as the “late lawyer, politician and shyster generally,” the article went on to recount a few of Scofield’s “many malicious acts.” These included a series of forgeries in St. Louis, for which he was sentenced to six months in jail.

Being a “born again” preacher, however, did not preclude Scofield from becoming a member of an exclusive New York men’s club in 1901. In his devastating biography, “The Incredible Scofield and His Book,” Joseph M. Canfield comments,

“The admission of Scofield to the Lotos Club, which could not have been sought by Scofield, strengthens the suspicion that has cropped up before, that someone was directing the career of C. I. Scofield.” [Canfield]

That someone, Canfield suspects, was associated with one of the club’s committee members, the Wall Street lawyer Samuel Untermeyer. As Canfield intimates, Scofield’s theology was

“most helpful in getting Fundamentalist Christians to back the international interest in one of Untermeyer’s pet projects – the Zionist Movement.” [Canfield]

Others, however, have been more explicit about the nature of Scofield’s service to the Zionist agenda. In “Unjust War Theory: Christian Zionism and the Road to Jerusalem,” Prof. David W. Lutz claims,

“Untermeyer used Scofield, a Kansas city lawyer with no formal training in theology, to inject Zionist ideas into American Protestantism. Untermeyer and other wealthy and influential Zionists whom he introduced to Scofield promoted and funded the latter’s career, including travel in Europe.”[Lutz]

Absent such powerful connections, it is hard to imagine “this peer among scalawags” ever getting a contract with Oxford University Press to publish his bible. Nevertheless, it remains a mystery why OUP chose to endorse such a sectarian work.

Atonement

If there had been no Scofield Bible, American presidents influenced by Christian Zionism, such as Truman, Johnson, Reagan and George W. Bush, would most likely have been less sympathetic to Israeli demands, and consequently more attentive to U.S. interests. Moreover, the American people might have been spared the well-publicized pro-Israeli rants of John Hagee, Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell, not to mention the lucrative End Times “prophecy” peddled by Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye.

But it is the people of the Middle East who have suffered most at the hands of an expansionist Israel, emboldened by the unswerving allegiance of America’s Christian Zionists, who were led to believe that Scofield’s words were God’s will.

Although much needless suffering has already been caused by the Scofield Bible, perhaps it’s not too late for Oxford University Press to publicly disavow its harmful book. Among its many victims are 3.5 million Palestinian refugees whose right to return is fervently opposed by Christian Zionists, who believe that the land belongs exclusively to “God’s chosen people.” At the very least, OUP could demonstrate remorse for its role in promoting ethnic cleansing by compensating those refugees with the considerable profits accrued over the past century from sales of its Zionist bible.”

My Comment

Not many people know about the role of the Scofield Bible in fostering one relatively marginal interpretation of the Scriptures, the dispensationalist views of John Darby, a 19th century minister of the Plymouth Brethren.

Dispensationalism went onto become so influential among American Protestants that it changed the political dynamics of the country. However, while the article cited above demonstrates how financial interests actively promoted the Scofield Bible, it wouldn’t have become so influential if the culture into which it was introduced wasn’t already receptive to it at many levels.

This is the argument I make in “Language of Empire” (MR Press, 2005), in which I analyzed the influence of Christian Zionism on the practice of torture as well as on the rhetoric that justified the war on terror.

You can find the core of the argument in “Christian Zionism: An Ideological Tower of Babel” (Counterpunch, January 15, 16, 2005), finished a year before the book actually came out.  The main point I make is that while Christian Zionism is important to the justification of American empire and of Israel’s role in it, it isn’t the only source of justification. There are broader streams in American religious and intellectual history with which Christian Zionism coincides. Those streams are identified below in the Counterpunch piece, which forms a concluding chapter in the book. Note, I’ve defined them below each part of the excerpt):

“Both secular and religious exceptionalists also share a unique relationship to the law that suggests that law and legal institutions are themselves implicated in the policies of Abu Ghraib and clarifies why it may not be possible to look to them alone for salvation.

[Legalism – the tendency to turn every moral/political/social debate into a courtroom drama over technical legality]

Both groups share the heritage of covenant theology which reads holy scripture as the record of legal contracts between God and man, a heritage which both privileges the law while simultaneously also promoting a sense of not being subject to it. The written contract binds us, but the interpretation of that contract remains with the state whose favored status has been granted by the law.”

[Voluntarism – the belief that the essence of divinity is not rationality, but will, and that God’s acts are beyond or even contradictory to reason]

“Dispensationalists read the final book of the Bible, Revelations, as a literal account of a post-war progression to a world-consuming conflagration, Armageddon. In doing so, they discount the importance of reason, learning, or social consensus in their interpretations in favor of what they see as a literal reading of the Biblical text. Parallel to this is their reading of the unfolding of human history as also a literal record where that text transparently reveals itself.”

[Dispensationalism – the belief that Biblical prophesies can be seen unfolding in history today and that God’s promises in the Bible relate to the political state of Israel]

“Just as fundamentalism disdains mediation, an anti-intellectual culture might find an oral tradition based on a continuing interpretative dialogue between past and present actually less attractive than the fixed guidelines of a written contract, whether made between one nation and another or between nations and God.”

[Literalism, Anti-intellectualism – the acceptance of the literal meaning of texts, the devaluation of interpretation, and a dislike for intellectual theories and intellectuals]

“From Biblical righteousness, the Promethean sense of the state as virtue incarnate; from Christian dominionism, the impetus to expand; from apocalyptic ruminations, the Promethean obsession with terror. And through all of these runs an unexamined sense of supreme moral satisfaction, a Puritan certainty about the nature and precise physical location of evil in the other that is translated not simply in the messianic language of Americanism but even in the shibboleths of liberalism. Evil is outside, out there in the world, radically disordered, deserving of eradication.”

[Dominionism, Puritanism, Apocalyptic Millenarianism —  the belief that society should be ordered by the Christian religion working through the state; the belief in the essential depravity of human beings and the need for salvation by grace that is unearned and not universal; a belief in the return of Christ as prophesied in Revelations, accompanied by a world-wide confrontation with the forces of evil, followed by a golden age of a 1000 years]

How these beliefs impact policy-making in the west can be seen most clearly and stunningly in the  Declaration of the first  Jerusalem Summit (October 12-14, 2003) which reads in part thus:

“ISRAEL AS THE KEY TO THE HARMONY OF CIVILIZATIONS

Billions of people believe that Jerusalem’s spiritual and historical importance endows it with a special authority to become a center of world’s unity.

Israel’s unique geographic and historic position at the crossroads of civilizations enables it to reconcile their conflicts. Israel’s unique spiritual experience enables it to find a golden mean between the fault lines dividing civilizations: between tradition and modernity, religion and science, authority and democracy.

We call upon all nations to choose Jerusalem, the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel, as a center for this evolving new unity. We believe that one of the objectives of Israel’s divinely-inspired rebirth is to make it the center of the new unity of the nations, which will lead to an era of peace and prosperity, foretold by the Prophets.”

Note: Many religions and nations have exceptionalist narrratives.

The unique problem at work here is in the lack of self-awareness of this innate chauvinism and the role it plays in the political positions taken by the US, UK, and Israel (the Anglo-sphere), as well as by their allied and client states.

This unique problem becomes a global one when the chauvinists, disguised as universalists, possess extraordinary nuclear arsenals and corporate power, and when the “deep capture” of the media and of legal and academic institutions has reached the point when there is no internal check whatever to its pretensions. The threat posed then is no longer simply to immediate victims of specific policies (say, Iraq) but to the entire world (the global financial crisis), and, indeed, the future of humanity (control of the gene pool, food and water and the dangers posed by bio-weapons and nuclear contamination).