Candid childhood memories of life behind the Iron Curtain
It is a truism to say that children have a grasp of reality different from adults; a clearer and more honest grasp that in most cases they lose with maturity. Rare is the man or woman who retains that innocent capacity to see through grown-up hypocrisy and pretence, presented to us so vividly in Hans Andersen’s memorable fairy-tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes.
In this humorous memoir of growing up in a city (unidentified) of 40,000 in the southern Urals of the Soviet Union in the 1970s-1980s, Fr Alexander Krylov, of Russian-German origin, manages to retain the undeceived eyes of childhood as he relates the absurdities and contradictions of life under Communism.
God and family
So many memoirs of living under the Soviet regime are, understandably, riven with bitterness and anger; the suffering has been too great to forget. The young Krylov, an only child, was protected from this by the love and faith of his family: his Catholic mother and grandmother and his Orthodox father.
The latter died when he was aged seven; showing unusual understanding for his age, Krylov realised that he was now “the one man in the family.” A certain independence of outlook seems to have characterised him from the start — probably because, despite the constant atheist propaganda impressed on him at school and in the wider society, “God’s presence in everyday life was… self-evident for our family.”
Much of this was owing to his grandmother’s influence for, as the family breadwinner, his mother had to work long hours outside the home. This grandmother, who had grown up in a German-speaking colony in Russia, resembled a traditional Russian “babushka” in her fortitude, her generosity and her strong faith that years of living in Leonid Brezhnev’s decrepit Soviet society could not erase.
In this world, all its citizens were officially atheist yet, as Krylov relates, everyone in his neighbourhood “knew” who the believers were and what religion they followed. His grandmother “saw an ally in every human being who was seeking God — Jews, Orthodox and Muslims” because — especially in death — “common prayer was much more important than any disagreement.”
There were no churches in his city and he only saw the inside of an Orthodox church (in western Ukraine) before starting school, aged six. Overwhelmed by its icons, candles and awe-inspiring atmosphere, Krylov told his mother, “Let’s stay here forever.” Undeterred, his grandmother erected a homemade altar in their small apartment, with its holy pictures, holy water, hymns and secret celebrations of the great Christian feasts. A candle would be lit in the window at Christmas; it was “somehow implicitly clear that God does not abandon human beings as long as a light is burning in at least one window on Christmas Eve and at least one person is waiting for the Christ-child.”
Economic woes
The author takes a gentle swipe at western society, obsessed with dietary fashions, when he explains, in a chapter titled “Healthy Diet”, why Soviet citizens had no choice but a healthy diet. Trying to survive in a corrupt and inefficient command economy, almost all families had an allotment with fruit trees and vegetables, to compensate for what they could not buy in the shops: everything possible was pickled, canned, stored or preserved. For some reason chickens were plentiful:
“Thanks to the poor work of the chemical industry, they were raised with no additives and usually looked as though they had walked by themselves from the chicken factory to the grocery store.”
I laughed aloud as I read this and other reminiscences, narrated in the candid way of a man who has not lost the artless gaze of a child. (After a distinguished academic career in Moscow, Fr Krylov decided to become a priest aged 42, on Easter Monday 2011 and was ordained in 2016.)
Another anecdote describes how he briefly worked in a grocery store where the shelves were often lacking common items buyers craved. Organising the shop’s store room, he noticed many such items, piled them on a trolley and wheeled it through into the shop, to the delighted surprise of the customers. The teenage boy could not understand why the manageress looked so discomfited and why his employment was suddenly curtailed.
Inner life
Just as the late Russian poet, Irina Ratushinskaya, who spent four years in the Gulag for writing “subversive” poetry, commented she was told so often as a child “there is no God”, that she began to believe in Him, Krylov reflects: “The prohibition against owning a Bible in the Soviet Union could only confirm its importance.”
In a telling incident in his teens, he describes a classroom meeting where these young Soviet citizens planned “to put socialist democracy into action.” This meant denouncing a fellow student who would not obey the rules. Krylov, who had befriended him, defended him in front of his classmates. They then turned on him, aware that he too was somehow “different.” The author comments, “Although I was always present, I lived my own life”. This hidden, inner life, which they sensed though it was never made explicit, presented an existential threat to his fellow student ideologues.
Inevitably, Lenin’s image was everywhere. Joining the Communist youth group, the Young Pioneers, one wore a red neckerchief and star. “Depicted on this star were the head of Lenin and three tongues of fire. I shared with no one my impression that this star depicted the head of Lenin burning in hell.” This was the response of a child whose private faith, never mentioned in class, helped to protect him against the atheism he was forced to listen to in public.
Finally, aged 15, overhearing the jocular remark of a friend’s father that vodka was “opium for the people”, Krylov comments: “Suddenly my eyes were opened: [I realised that] Communism had simply become a new religion.”
If the Emperor in this case was not exactly naked, nonetheless the short, discrete chapters of this kindly memoir remind readers that his clothes were uncomfortable, unsuitable, ill-fitting and threadbare.
Nasrallah had been scheduled to make a televised speech Friday evening, but postponed the address, with Hezbollah’s media relations department claiming he was suffering from an influenza infection which would “prevent him from speaking in a regular and normal manner.”
Since then, however, reports from Lebanon and Saudi Arabia have claimed that Nasrallah in fact suffered a stroke last week and has been incapacitated. “Nasrallah’s illness, which led him to be admitted to the hospital, is not the ‘flu’, as has been claimed, but rather is a second stroke,” Saudi journalist Hussein al-Gawi wrote.
“Arab sources report that Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah is hospitalized in critical condition after suffering a stroke, with one source going so far as to say Nasrallah has died and that the news of his death is being kept secret for the time being. There are no confirmations yet as to Nasrallah’s current status,” said former Israeli intelligence official and regional analyst Avi Melamed.
Hezbollah also said its leader is “receiving the appropriate treatment” and will speak on Tuesday evening at a Hezbollah rally commemorating slain Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and slain Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, but “If Nasrallah either cancels or doesn’t show for the speech on Tuesday, it could indicate a wider issue with his health,” continued Melamed.
“While right now rumors are the only potential indicators of Nasrallah’s present condition, their reverberation throughout the Arab world clearly indicate the distaste that many Arabs have for Nasrallah. Those detractors, great in number are certainly hoping that Hassan Nasrallah is indeed dead,” Melamed concluded.
In August 2010, Nasrallah, making his first public appearance in more than a year, told hundreds of cheering supporters at a rally that Israel was “a cancerous growth,” and that “[t]he only solution is to destroy it without giving it the opportunity to surrender.” “The elimination of Israel is not only a Palestinian interest,” he added. “It is the interest of the entire Muslim world and the entire Arab world…. We say to America, Israel, Great Britain and their regional tools, we say to every enemy and friend … we in Hezbollah will not abandon Palestine and the people of Palestine. Call us terrorists, criminals, try to kill us, we Shi’ites will never abandon Palestine.”
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Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas:Fr. Frank Pavone has expressed the hope that the next pope could undo the damage done by the present one. He should take comfort from the experience of St. John Henry Cardinal Newman.
For more than half a century, we have been hearing of “the spirit of Vatican II,” which has caused the Church incalculable trouble. I would like to focus on “the spirit of Vatican I” – not often spoken of, but which has also caused the Church incalculable trouble in its “creeping infallibilism.”
St. John Henry Cardinal Newman was among the “inopportunists” in the lead-up to that Council. While believing strongly in papal primacy, he considered a dogmatic definition to be inopportune, and probably also unnecessary. When the teaching was dogmatically defined, he was actually quite pleased with its moderate claims. He was deeply concerned, however, that a certain penumbra would develop, almost deifying both the person and acts of the pope.
It’s in this perspective that I want to situate the Father Frank Pavone case. I’ve known the man for decades and count him a friend; he’s bright, thoroughly an orthodox, faithful, charismatic, and courageous priest – with a huge ego, which may figure largely in the current crisis, on both sides. But as a prelate remarked to me the other day: “If a big ego is grounds for laicization, we wouldn’t have many priests or bishops left!”
There’s been no shortage of commentary on Pavone’s laicization. Father Gerald Murray produced a short but informative canonical reflection, essentially concluding that the grounds for dismissal given in the nuncio’s letter to the bishops of the country, namely, blasphemy and disobedience, do not generally rise to the level demanding laicization. In point of fact, whenever he came up against what he deemed an unfair demand by his bishop, Pavone appealed to the Holy See – and was vindicated every time.
Vatican I’s dogmatic definition of the Church’s infallibility was followed by the loss of the Papal States, causing the pope to become a “prisoner of the Vatican.” A protective wall was built up to support the pope, a kind of aura culminating in the pontificates of Pius XII and John Paul II.
I deeply admired and loved John Paul, however, the personality cult that grew up around him is partly responsible for the present moment. Young priests, when asked why they were doing certain things all too often took their cue from JPII and answered, “Because the Holy Father does this.” A wrong answer: I do something because it’s right, not because a pope does it.
Now, let’s turn to March 13, 2013, the day Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio succeeded Benedict XVI. It was the inauguration of a pontificate of lawlessness and overreach. Consider the following examples.
Francis appeared on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica in improper attire (we later heard that he told the papal master of ceremonies, “The Carnival is over”); even more concerning, he asked the crowd assembled in the Square to bless him. Clearly, he did not intend to submit himself to the role of being pope but planned to refashion the ministry in his own image and likeness.
On his first Holy Thursday as pope, he washed the feet of women and Muslims, breaking liturgical law.
In 2014, he summarily dismissed Raymond Cardinal Burke from his post as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura.
Also in 2014, he removed Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano as the Ordinary of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay.
In 2017, he reached down into the staff of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and fired three priests of the dicastery. When the prefect, Gerhard Cardinal Müller, eventually got an audience and asked on what grounds those men were to be terminated, Francis replied that as pope, he could do whatever he wanted, with no explanations.
Within a few months, Müller also found himself out of a job.
For years now, we have watched the hostile papal take-over of the Knights of Malta.
Father Alessandro Minutella of the Archdiocese of Palermo incurred a double (!) excommunication and laicization, with no trial and no appeal.
Francis often concelebrated Masses without proper vestments, without even a stole. A pope cannot be a “concelebrant.” If he presides at a liturgy (rather than being the principal celebrant), the proper vesture is a cope (which he only recently has adopted).
Amoris Laetitia gave a wink toward Holy Communion for the divorced/remarried.
On his own initiative, with no consultation, he changed the text of the Catechism on the death penalty and even pressured episcopal conferences to change the wording of the Lord’s Prayer.
Whatever one thinks of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, he was denied due process of law and brusquely laicized by the pope (ironically dismissing one of the men who helped make him pope).
Recently, he removed Bishop Daniel Fernandez Torres from his post as Ordinary of Arecibo, Puerto Rico without adequate explanation.
A reign of terror prevails in the Curia, with workers silenced by fear; this is also the case with many of the world’s bishops.
The College of Cardinals has been treated like altar boys. For years on end, Francis allowed for no pre-consistory meetings; the latest consistory had no time scheduled for public interventions.
Where is the much-vaunted collegiality/synodality? A dramatic loss of episcopal authority has occurred, so that bishops have had their judgment circumscribed as to the Usus Antiquior of the Mass and in their ability to establish new religious communities, among many other examples.
Francis has chosen to rule by motu proprio (the ecclesiastical version of an executive order) 47 times in nine years. John Paul II’s issued a mere 30 in 27 years.
Many more instances of papal overreach could be cited. So, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Francis acted against Father Pavone as he did. But it’s a great scandal for the faithful and even for non-Catholics when an internationally known and respected priest is laicized – for reasons not envisioned in canon law, accompanied by a refusal to explain to the media.
It is perversely amusing that those on the left side of the ecclesial aisle are currently competing with W. G. Ward, the quintessential Ultramontanist, who once exclaimed, “I should like a new Papal Bull every morning with my Times at breakfast.”
Austin Ivereigh is the ultimate apologist for the Bergoglian mode of governance, while the disgraced Father Thomas Rosica uttered this shameless assertion in 2018: “Pope Francis breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants because he is free from disordered attachments. Our Church has indeed entered a new phase. With the advent of this first Jesuit pope, it is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture.”
That’s blasphemy, surpassing any blasphemy that Father Pavone could have spoken.
Meanwhile, Jesuit Father James Martin continues, unimpeded, to lead others into grave sin and Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik goes on his merry way after sexually abusing young nuns and even absolving one in Confession. The double standard and abuse of authority lead to disrespect and disregard for legitimate exercises of authority. In the next conclave, there must be a clarion call to prevent a future pope from such behavior.
Writing to Lady Simeon on November 18, 1870, Newman said the following about Pius IX: “We have come to a climax of tyranny. It is not good for a pope to live 20 years. It is anomaly and bears no good fruit; he becomes a god, has no one to contradict him, does not know facts, and does cruel things without meaning it.”
And, in his 1874 Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, Newman declared, without fear of contradiction “But a pope is not infallible in his laws, nor in his commands, nor in his acts of state, nor in his administration, nor in his public policy. Let it be observed that the [First] Vatican Council has left him just as it found him here.”
Unfortunately, Newman himself suffered from Roman chicanery and shenanigans. In fact, he was being investigated for heresy without even being informed! Such experiences caused him to say:
I fear that in one sense the iron has entered into my soul. I mean that confidence in any superiors whatever never can blossom again within me. I never shall feel easy with them. I shall, I feel, always think they will be taking some advantage of me. . . .[I]t is my highest gain and most earnest request to them, that they would let me alone. . . .Whether or not they will consent to this is more than I can say, for they seem to wish to ostracise me.
Newman’s total vindication did indeed come, with another pope, Leo XIII, who created Newman as the first cardinal of his pontificate. With no small measure of relief and joy, the elder churchman declared: “The cloud is lifted from me forever.”
Father Pavone has expressed the hope that the next pope could undo the damage done by the present one. He should take comfort from the experience of Cardinal Newman, even as he seeks his intercession.
Father Peter Stravinskas holds doctorates in school administration and theology. He is the founding editor of The Catholic Response and publisher of Newman House Press. Most recently, he launched a graduate program in Catholic school administration through Pontifex University.
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Qatar is a Muslim Brotherhood hub. Most major Muslim organizations in the U.S. are linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, which has the stated goal (according to a captured internal document) in America of “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within, and sabotaging its miserable house.”
And this tool of Qatar is going to fight against “foreign propaganda.” Given the proclivities this administration, that could mean that Rubin is going to fight against pro-American material.
The State Department’s Global Engagement Center is charged with understanding and countering propaganda from America’s adversaries. So a man who has shilled for Qatar, Zimbabwe, and a Turkish state bank linked to Iran may be an awkward fit as its leader.
As a partner at the firm Ballard Partners, James Rubin until 2020 lobbied State Department and White House officials on behalf of Qatar, the oil-rich Gulf nation that funds terrorist groups and is allied with Iran, according to disclosures filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Rubin, who served in the State Department under President Bill Clinton, also represented Halkbank, a Turkish state bank indicted in a gold-for-oil scheme with Iran. He shilled for the government of Zimbabwe in its effort to alleviate sanctions over the “unusual and extraordinary threat” the regime poses to the United States.
Biden on Friday appointed Rubin to serve as special envoy and coordinator of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, formed to identify and expose foreign propaganda “that threatens the security of the United States, our allies, and partners.” According to the State Department, Rubin will focus on countering foreign disinformation and propaganda with a focus on Russia, China, Iran, and terrorist groups like ISIS and al Qaeda….
Rubin, the ex-husband of CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour, is the latest in a string of foreign agents hired by the Biden administration….Erin Pelton, who served as special assistant to Biden, lobbied for Qatar prior to joining the administration. George Salem, appointed chairman of a board at USAID this year, represented the Palestine Monetary Authority, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Disclosures filed with the Justice Department show Rubin met frequently with State Department and White House officials on behalf of his foreign clients. He registered as an agent of Qatar in May 2019 as Ballard Partners worked for “the betterment of U.S.-Qatari bilateral relations.” The Gulf nation has long funded and provided a safe-haven for ISIS and al Qaeda extremists. Qatar’s foreign minister offered condolences to Iran after a U.S. airstrike killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.
Rubin registered as a lobbyist for Halkbank and Zimbabwe in March 2019, according to his foreign agent disclosure.
In 2017, the Department of Justice accused Halkbank of violating U.S. sanctions against Iran by trading gold for Iranian oil and gas. Prosecutors indicted Halkbank executives in 2018 and filed additional charges in 2019 for evading sanctions. During meetings with his lobbying contacts at the State Department and White House, Rubin reportedly suggested the United States go easy on Halkbank because of Turkey’s membership in the NATO alliance….
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AA:Your father was a noted historian who taught at Cornell. What did you learn from him? How has your understanding of history, and growing up in the United States, shaped your understanding of Israel and of the region?
BN: Well, I think my time in the United States obviously made me appreciate the important role of the United States in protecting the peace and stability of the world. And I view that alliance with the United States as particularly important. I can also say that I think one of my main goals would be to speak with my friend of 40 years, President Biden. And I’m going to tell him that I think that there is a need for a reaffirmation of America’s commitment to its traditional allies in the Middle East. Israel, of course, is there and we’ve had a solid, unbreakable relationship. But I think that the alliance, the traditional alliance with Saudi Arabia and other countries, has to be reaffirmed. There should not be periodic swings, or even wild swings in this relationship, because I think that the alliance between America’s allies and with America is the anchor of stability in our region. I think it requires periodic reaffirmation and I’m to speak to President Biden about it.
AA:About the cabinet formation that stirred a lot of controversy. In light of the commitments you have made to your allies on the extreme right, including handing them broad powers in the West Bank, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz says that he expects a collapse of the security situation in the West Bank that would extend to the Gaza Strip. What’s your take on that?
BN: Well, first of all, I disagree with the premise of your questions. I didn’t hand over great powers in Judea-Samaria, the West Bank, not at all. In fact, all the decisions will be made by me and the defense minister, and that’s actually in the coalition agreement. So there’s a lot of misinformation about that.
I think my record speaks for itself; the last decade in which I led Israel was the safest decade in Israel’s history. But not only safe and secure for Israelis, also safe and secure for the Palestinians. Because there’s been the least loss of life on both sides and that’s not accidental. It’s because of a policy of security that I’ve led, which has actually resulted in more peace and economic possibilities. And by the way, in the year that I left government and the outgoing government was in power, things changed immediately. We had an eruption of violence like we had not seen since 2008, a year before I returned to office.
My policy is one of stability, peace, prosperity and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike. I think that [this] record not only speaks for itself, it also speaks for the future. I will govern and I will lead, and I will navigate this government. The other parties are joining me, I’m not joining them.
Remember Likud is one-half of this coalition. The other parties are, some of them are 1/4, 1/5 the size of the Likud. They’re joining us; they will follow my policy.
AA:Your partnership with the far-right parties has stirred concerns at home and abroad. How do you expect our countries to deal with a government whose leading members portray Arabs as enemies, sometimes in terms that are overtly racist?
BN: Well, first of all, a lot of them have also changed and moderated their views, principally because with the assumption of power comes responsibility. And as you approach power, you become more responsible.
But again, here’s my record: I have led successive governments, some of them with parties to my right. And during those years, I actually invested in the Arab communities in Israel more than any of the previous governments combined. Investments where investments should go — in education and infrastructure, in transportation, and the quality of life, in governance.
Because a lot of them are complaining about the eruption of crime that makes their life hell. So I’ve invested in that too. I opened 11 police stations in Arab communities in Israel in the decade between 2010 and 2020 at the request of the community. [Do] you know, how many we had before? One. So I increased it by tenfold, both for security, for the ability for youngsters.
I want every young Arab boy or Arab girl in Israel to have the same opportunities to partake in the remarkable success story that is Israel. And therefore I’ve encouraged that, and will continue to encourage that.
AA:But what about the settlement, the new settlement about to [be established] in the West Bank that will further undermine the two-state solution. Mahmoud Abbas told al-Arabiya two days ago that this could lead to armed resistance, and he can’t stop it anymore.
BN: Well, I think he [Mahmoud Abbas] keeps on saying that. But in fact, the reason we’ve not had an Israeli-Palestinian peace is because the Palestinians have refused to do, and I think tragically their leadership for the last century has refused to do, what is finally happening in the rest of the Arab world. And that is to recognize that the State of Israel is here to stay.
I think coming to a solution with the Palestinians will require out-of-the-box thinking, will require new thinking. The reason we got the historic Abraham accords is that we got out of this mode that Mahmoud Abbas wants to stay in, and that is to, you know, to mount the same lines, to go through the same rabbit holes, not to seek new ways. In fact, it’s when we started thinking about things in a new way that we broke the cycle of paralysis that paralyzed [attempts at] peace for a quarter of a century.
Now, I think paradoxically – I don’t think it’s paradoxical, but other people do – that as we expand the number of countries that make peace with us, it actually helps bring about at the end a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Everybody said “No, first you have to solve the Palestinian problem, otherwise, you won’t get peace with the Arab world.” I said it may be the other way around. It may be that as you expand the peace with the Arab states, you’ll be able to actually get to the peace with the Palestinians and I firmly believe that.
But I will say this, I think we face a possibility of not merely an expansion of the peace; I think we can have a new peace initiative that will form a quantum leap for the achievement for the resolution of both the Arab-Israeli conflict and ultimately, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And of course, I’m referring to what could be a truly remarkable historic peace with Saudi Arabia.
Mind you, I’m committed to deepening and strengthening the remarkable Abraham Accords that we’ve had with our neighbors, but I think the peace with Saudi Arabia will serve two purposes. It will be a quantum leap for an overall peace between Israel and the Arab world. It will change our region in ways that are unimaginable. And I think it will facilitate, ultimately, a Palestinian-Israeli peace. I believe in that. I intend to pursue it.
Of course, it’s up to the to the leadership of Saudi Arabia if they want to partake in this effort. I certainly hope they would.
AA:Speaking in Abu Dhabi, the Saudi foreign minister recently reaffirmed Saudi Arabia’s commitment to seeing a Palestinian state as a precondition to normalization. And Saudi officials have been saying time and again, they have predicted a fruitful and collectively beneficial relationship with Israel that would come after a two-state solution, after the Palestinian achievement of statehood.
What do you anticipate for Israeli-Saudi relations, given those constraints? Is normalization on the horizon? Would you meaningfully compromise on the Palestinian issue? Is there a plan after you become prime minister?
BN: There have been many ideas. I think the last initiative of President Trump actually put forth very innovative ideas that could help achieve or end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. I think we can end the Arab-Israeli conflict and achieve peace with the Palestinians. We just have to be creative about it. And we have to not dig in our heels because if you dig in your heels, you get stuck in the old groove.
I think part of the remarkable thing that has happened in the last few years, with the Abraham Accords, showed that if we get out of this groove, then amazing things can happen. And I think that amazing things can happen not only for Israelis and Arabs, but for Israelis and Palestinian-Arabs as well. I look forward to having the opportunity to discuss this with the Arab leaders and with the Palestinians themselves.
AA:Are you willing to accept the Arab Peace Initiative as a blueprint for negotiations? What concrete steps are you willing to take, or are you willing to take any concrete steps, in resolving the Palestinian issue in order to create this larger peace in the Arab world that you mentioned?
BN: Well, first of all, I have taken concrete steps under my administration, contrary to the public image. For example, it was under my government, not the previous left-led government, that we reduced dramatically the number of security checkpoints, we increased the number of passages that enabled 150,000 Palestinians from the territories to come and work every day. And you know I never shut that down even during periods of tension and terror. I said “no, they have to be able to earn a living, be able to care for their families, be able to move around.” I’ve encouraged investments, joint ventures, in high-tech between Israeli entrepreneurs and Palestinian entrepreneurs, the building of a Palestinian city, Rawabi, and other things. These are practical things that I say.
But I’m not here to tell you that an economic peace is a substitute for political peace. I believe that the reason we’ve not had a political peace, we couldn’t move forward, is because the Palestinian leadership still refuses to accept the right of the State of Israel to exist. That remains the problem. If you keep looking at other places, you’re not going to find a solution. I hope that [this] will change.
I think that the growing circle of peace between Israel and Arab states and the quantum leaps that we can have in a peace with Saudi Arabia will also convince the Palestinians, the Palestinian leadership, because I think quite a few of the Palestinian people already are there to adopt a different attitude towards accepting the State of Israel. And once that happens, then many things can happen. I think we should move forward creatively. We should have talks about it.
Look, the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 was an indication that there is a willingness, in those days, to think about how to get out of the straitjacket and to get to a comprehensive peace. I think things have changed, things have moved. But the need to have this kind of new thinking is important. And again, if we stick to the old grooves, we’ll be stuck in the old groove. If we think about new ways, then I think the sky’s the limit. And I mean that; it’s limitless actually.
AA:Do you consider the Arab Peace Initiative as a blueprint for negotiations, just as a starting point?
BN: I think it’s an indication of a desire to end the conflict in all its terms. But I think 20 years later, you know, we need to have a fresh view. And I’m not going say what it is. I think we need to talk about it. Maybe talk discreetly.
You know, I’m sort of a champion of a slight twist in what Woodrow Wilson said in the Versailles Peace Conference. He said he believed in open covenants, openly arrived at. I believe in open covenants, secretly arrived at or discreetly arrived at. There we will have to have discussions about all the questions that you asked today and see how we can advance this. If you try to sort it out in advance you get stuck. That’s what happens.
In Israel, we say “climb the tree.” Everybody climbs on their own tree and says, “I’m here, and I’m not climbing down and no matter how many ladders you give me.” I’m stuck in my tree, the other guy is stuck in his tree, and we just shout at each other across tree trunks and we never get to a meeting of the minds or an actual meeting on the ground. I think we have to take a different position. All these things need to be discussed discreetly, responsibly and, within the confines of closed meetings, openly. And once we get an agreement, then we can come out.
I don’t need the public fanfare, I don’t need it. You know, if you come to an agreement, it will be publicized. If you don’t come to an agreement, nothing happens. I think we can come to amazing agreements.
AA: Israel recently signed a US-Iranian-backed maritime deal with Lebanon, which you said was illegal. What exactly is wrong with the agreement? Why do you oppose it? And as prime minister will you repudiate that agreement, or do you intend to challenge it in court? There have been many statements saying that it’s unconstitutional.
BN: Yeah. I think it contravened a longstanding tradition of bringing agreements that change Israel’s territorial claims or territorial possessions or even economic claims. You bring it to the Knesset. I brought the Abraham Accords to the Knesset. By the way, I didn’t have to, but I thought it was right on such an important matter to have our parliament decide on it. And I think they should have done it here too. I said that I’ll look into it, [and] that I’ll find ways, if there are bad things in it or incorrect things in it, or harmful things in it, to correct it in a responsible way.
I don’t necessarily go tearing documents up, and I don’t think that’s going to be the case. I’ll do what I can to protect Israeli economic and security interests within the policy that I talk about. And I think I’ve shown that I know how to do that responsibly, without adventurism and without wild statements. I’m too experienced for that.
AA:Does Israel intend to sign any more US-sponsored agreements with Iran-backed neighbors and Iran-backed agreements in Syria, for example? And do such rumors reflect the wishes of the current US administration, which pushed Israel extremely hard to sign the Lebanon Maritime Agreement?
BN: Well, it’s been signed. I mean, it hasn’t been approved, but it’s been signed. You mean other agreements? I don’t know. I’ll look into it.
Look, my concern is that the revenues that come out of the sea that I think heavily favored Lebanon, do not favor Lebanon. They favor Hezbollah. And Hezbollah has not been a force for peace. So you may just be funding Hezbollah’s military arsenal that could be used not only against Israel, but against many others in the Middle East. You have to think about that very carefully. But that is already done. As I said, I’ll see what I can do to moderate any damage or to secure Israel’s economic and security interests.
But as far as new agreements, well, this time we’ll be negotiating it. And, you know, I’m a fair but tough negotiator, and we’ll see what is brought before us. I don’t rule out things, but I always negotiate based on what I believe is Israel’s interest. I don’t only look at Israel’s interest because any negotiation always involves the other side. But the first thing that I look at: Is Israel’s security going to be hurt? Are Israel’s national interests going to be impeded? And within these parameters, we can proceed. We’ll see. I don’t want to commit before I know what they’re suggesting.
AA:Mr. Prime Minister, are you willing to extend that or look at an agreement on the land border between Israel and Lebanon?
BN: Continual negotiations are there, and there have been border adjustments, by the way, on both sides, over the years. They have been tactical, and I don’t think there is a major claim for a major shift, not a serious one.
The instability under the Lebanese-Israeli border was not based on this or that claim that the border has to move a kilometer here or a kilometer there. The instability was that this border was taken over on the Lebanese side by Hezbollah that calls for the eradication of Israel, [and that has] flooded south Lebanon with tens of thousands of rockets, 10,000 of which were fired into Israel. That’s what’s causing the instability.
And Hezbollah doesn’t say, well, we’re doing all this because we think we should have 500 more meters on and this or that part of the border. They say: ‘We’re doing all this because Israel shouldn’t exist.’ That’s the problem.
I don’t know what is being told in the Arab world, but that’s the reality. Hezbollah is a force against peace, a force against stability, a force against the existence of my country and in my opinion, a force backed by Iran against the security and stability of many countries. And that’s what we’ve had to deal with on the Lebanese border.
I wish we had a real border dispute between us and Lebanon. If there are any such disputes, they’re trivial and minor compared to the real problem, which I’ve just discussed.
AA:If we take a step back geopolitically, do you see these US-backed agreements with countries that are backed by Iran, like Lebanon and Syria, or other countries where Iranian militias proliferate, as part of the framework of “regional balance” or regional “integration,” to use the language of the US administration.
In other words, is there a different purpose between US-sponsored agreements with countries that are backed by Iran on one hand, and the agreements between Israel and Gulf states also known as the Abraham Accords, are they all just part of making peace? Or are there in fact two different kinds of agreements that support two very different potential regional security architectures: one centered around the US relationship with Iran, and the second centered around Israel’s relationships in the Gulf?
BN: I think the agreements that we make with like-minded states, traditional allies of the United States, and now, I think sharing common interests to block Iranian aggression, are powerful agreements and they actually have substance to them and they have weight. You can see immediately the flourishing in economic relations. Right now, after the Abraham Accords, we have billions of dollars, billions of dollars shaping up every year in joint ventures. We have people-to-people meetings, hundreds of thousands of Israelis visiting the Gulf states, Gulf states’ citizens visiting Israel. It’s amazing. These are solid.
Why is that? Because there is a meeting of the minds. We both recognize each other’s existence, each other’s right to exist. The benefits that accrue to our population from cooperation and the desire to have our peoples move into the future with progress, with prosperity, and with security. It really is miraculous. That’s what we can do with countries that share our vision of a truly new Middle East.
The problem with Iran and its proxies is that they have a completely different vision. They want to stop this progress. They want to dominate the Middle East, if not conquer it outright. They openly say they want to annihilate Israel. So, you know, obviously you may have a tactical agreement on the agenda on the Lebanese maritime question, but you can’t really make it.
What kind of an agreement would I make with Iran? The method of our decapitation? How we commit suicide? How we allow them to have a nuclear arsenal that will threaten all of us? That’s not an agreement.
So yes, I think there is a quantum, an enormous difference between the solid agreements between like-minded states and the so-called agreements with Iran and its proxies that are usually violated even before they’re signed.
AA:Yeah, but surely the maritime agreement between Lebanon and Israel, essentially between Hezbollah and Israel, is an Iranian endorsed agreement? Now, whether it’s in Israel’s interest is besides the point of whether it is an Iranian-backed agreement.
BN: Look, there are ceasefire agreements between rivals and enemies, and they hold as long as the common interest to hold them keeps on. But that’s different from peace.
I draw a distinction between tactical agreements or ceasefire agreements, or agreements that temporarily, or in a limited fashion, serve otherwise warring parties and the establishment of a broad peace agreement. That’s so different.
Can we have a peace agreement with Iran? No, because Iran says there shouldn’t be an Israel. They also say maybe not as forcefully, publicly, but they also say you shouldn’t have many of the other countries in the Middle East, they should be subjugated as Iran’s, basically as Iran’s minions. They use their proxies in Syria, they use their proxies in Yemen, they use their proxies in Lebanon to affect such a policy, not merely against Israel, but against other Arab countries.
So, you know, who cares what they say? Look at what they do. Who cares what they sign? It doesn’t mean anything. They sign and they violate, they cheat as fast as they sign. And you certainly shouldn’t make agreements with them that are bad if they keep the agreement, which is what I think the JCPOA was. It was a horrible agreement because it allowed Iran basically with international approval, to develop a nuclear and basically an atomic arsenal paved with gold, with hundreds of billions of dollars of sanction relief. Where does the sanction relief go? Does it go to building hospitals in Tehran and Iran’s cities? Does it go to solving the water problem there? It goes for the expansion of terrorism and aggression throughout the Middle East. So I’m very clear-eyed about that.
By the way, I think I have to tell you, I think that beyond public statements, I think the leaders of most of the Arab countries, and certainly the leading Arab countries are absolutely clear-eyed about this threat of Iranian aggression. And I, for one, do not fall into the trap of saying that if I sign an agreement with the ayatollahs, they’re going to keep it. They’re going to violate it if they can. They’ll keep it only if it allows them to advance towards a capability of much greater aggression in a very short time.
AA:Speaking of the JCPOA, Washington is clearly still keen to strike a deal with Iran despite Iran’s clear weakness and despite Israeli warnings of Iran’s determination to pursue its nuclear ambitions independent of any international restriction. You have always been a vocal critic of the JCPOA, obviously. What is your plan…?
BN: Well, you’re quite right. You’re quite right. I have been a vocal critic of it. First of all, look at what is happening in Iran itself. The Iranian people are asking themselves are they better off today than they were 40 years ago when the revolution took place? You know, just look at their GDP per capita. It’s basically, you know, a few thousand dollars. It hasn’t moved. In Saudi Arabia, it more than doubled. In Israel, [it] more than doubled. Okay. Because we invest in our people. We invest in our citizens. But the ayatollah’s regime is just investing in radicalism and terrorism and aggression.
So, number one, the Iranian people are not well off, and the JCPOA would give hundreds of billions of dollars to this aggressive regime, which they will use, again, not for the Iranian people, but for their aggressive plans to take over the Middle East and beyond that. So I think that’s one criticism that I’ve had.
The second [is] it doesn’t stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear arsenal because under the JCPOA, if it’s resumed today, within 3 to 4 years, Iran would have unlimited enrichment, uranium enrichment capacity under an international approval, under a P5+1 and the great powers that would approve it, thereby basically saying to Iran: ‘All you have to do is postpone the manufacture of these bombs, these nuclear bombs for two years, and you can be a nuclear threshold state with our approval. That’s crazy. That’s folly.
But today, I sense a change – not only in Israel, obviously, and in our region, but I sense a change in Washington. And I think given what has happened in Iran, given the extraordinary courage of the Iranian men and these extraordinary Iranian women, I think there’s been a change and a lot of people now across the board in many lands say: ‘You really cannot go back to the JCPOA and we have to do everything in our power to stop Iran from having a nuclear arsenal.’
So the answer to your question in one sentence: I’m committed to do whatever I can do to prevent Iran from having a nuclear arsenal. I naturally won’t itemize that here, but that’s a firm commitment that I’ve made to myself and to the people of Israel.
AA:Even without the consent of Washington?
BN: Sorry?
AA: Even without the consent of Washington to pursue more aggression towards Iran?
BN: Not aggression. I want to protect ourselves against Iran’s aggression, and against a regime that openly calls for the annihilation of my country. That’s obvious, but the answer to your question is yes. With or without an agreement.
AA:Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister. Would you mind if I just stick with the Iran situation right now? You just lightly touched on the protests that were happening there. Do you think the Iranian regime in the present moment is strong enough to withstand the current unrest, or do you believe that it’s weak enough to fall? What comes after? And in that situation, how would Israel react?
BN: I don’t think anyone has an answer to that question. It’s a very important question. But I think that if you look at what is happening now, since 1979, nothing like this has happened. I mean, initially people thought well, it’s you know, it’s like the green revolution, but it’s not. It’s stronger. Initially, they said it was only limited to the universities. No, it’s not. It’s stronger. They said it’s only limited to, you know, a few urban areas. No, it’s stronger.
Something very significant is happening in Iran. And it reflects the weakness of the regime that unlike, for example, Israel or unlike Saudi Arabia or other countries or the Gulf, the other Gulf states, they have not done anything for their people.
I mean, why are the people protesting? They’re protesting because they want basic life, you know. You know, Iran suffers from this unbelievable shortage of water. What have they done for it? Nothing. Well, you have to drink to live, to buy food at a reasonable price to live. You have to have basic income to live. You have to have basic infrastructure to live. And Iran has done nothing on that.
So I think that, you know, ultimately these pressures accumulate. And rather than adopt a policy of creative reform, which I think is happening, for example, in Saudi Arabia, they haven’t done that, haven’t moved an inch. They haven’t moved a nanometer. You know, they’re just stuck and they don’t care for their people. They don’t work for their people. They work for a radical ideology that is bad for Iranians, bad for Arabs, bad for Israelis, bad for Americans and everyone else in between. So I think that [this] realization [which] has now crystallized across so many sectors of Iranian society creates a new situation.
How far does it go? Does it bring about the collapse or fundamental change in the regime or the replacement of this regime? I think it’s too early to say, but I think we have to recognize that something very important is happening.
AA:Mr. Prime Minister, in the beginning of this interview, you mentioned that you’d like to see reaffirmation from Washington to its allies in the Middle East, to its traditional allies in the Middle East. In your recent autobiography, you portrayed Barack Obama as an optimist. That’s what you called him.
What strategic vision do you think Obama had for the Middle East? Also, what place does Israel and Saudi Arabia have in that vision, Obama’s vision, which is still being followed by Obama’s staffers, who staff the Biden Administration as well? And how would you describe the results of that vision so far, whether it be in Israel and Lebanon and Syria and Yemen or elsewhere.
BN: Well, I think President Obama, whom I respected but disagreed with, believed that Iran was the key to stabilizing the Middle East. And he thought that if he would make a deal with the ayatollahs, it would pacify the entire Middle East. He believed that the JCPOA, which he signed, would change Iran’s behavior in the Middle East. It would make Iran join the family of nations.
I think it disregarded the ideological thrust of this radical, radical regime, its plans, its raison d’etre, which is to dominate the Middle East and frankly, dominate good portions of the world with awesome power. I think he didn’t see that.
So when the JCPOA was signed, I argued this in Congress in 2015, I said, “well, you know, It won’t bring Iran into the family of nations. It will let Iran out of the tiger’s cage to devour one nation after the other.” And that’s what happened.
Did they pursue peace in Yemen? Did they pursue peace in Iraq? Did they pursue peace in Lebanon or in Gaza where they have their proxies and so many other places? And the answer is, of course not. They did the exact opposite. So I think on this, we had a difference of view with President Obama. And I think everybody can judge who was right and who was wrong.
I think that on this, many Arab leaders, including Gulf leaders and certainly the leadership of Saudi Arabia, see very clearly what the true nature of Iran’s policies are, the true nature of its regime. Now, you know, I can also tell you that from day one, Iran also cheated on the nuclear accord. But I think it goes well beyond that. I think it’s a question of how do you see the Middle East?
I saw it was not the right policy for the United States to seek an accommodation with such an aggressive regime in Tehran. Instead, it should bolster the traditional allies of America, beginning with Israel and Saudi Arabia, against Iranian aggression, and to develop our own societies, our own countries in every way, in security and in technology and in civilian life and so on. That was my vision.
Now you ask, where is America’s policy? Are they going to go back to the JCPOA and give Iran this free course paved with gold to a nuclear arsenal?
Well, a year and a half ago before the protests in Iran, I would say they were certainly trying to do that. But I think there is a re-thinking in Washington. I don’t think I’m quite convinced. I haven’t had obviously talks yet with the administration, but I will soon. From the initial contacts that we have, I think there’s a rethinking of that. And I’m glad there is.
I’d like that rethinking to go back to the reaffirmation of the traditional alliances in the Middle East. I think that’s good. I think it’s good for our countries. Those are good for America and good for peace.
AA: Everybody’s saying now that Iran is a threshold nuclear power. In other words, it is just a few months away from being a nuclear power. You have been talking about it for 20 years, but Israel never took action, direct military kinetic action against it. And now people are saying it’s too late.
Do you agree with that? I mean, is it too late to be able to stop a threshold nuclear power from becoming a nuclear power?
BN: No, it’s not. And also, we did take a lot of actions which I don’t itemize in my recently published autobiography, except one: The raid that our people did on the Iran’s Secret Atomic Archive. And we brought back a lot of valuable information out of this archive. But I can tell you this, I think, and our former chief of staff, who’s now a political opponent of mine, said during the recent elections, he said that because of the actions that the Israeli government under me took, we set back the Iranian program 7 to 10 years.
Did we stop it? No. But can we stop it militarily and in other ways? The answer is, I believe yes. And we’re certainly not going to let them just plunge ahead.
Now, if you ask how can you stop such a problem, I won’t go into the operational or technical details. But I will say that unless you’re able to have a credible military option against rogue states that are trying to arm themselves with nuclear weapons, you won’t stop them.
We stopped Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons with a credible military action. We stopped Syria from developing nuclear weapons with a credible military action. The United States stopped Gadhafi’s Libya from developing nuclear weapons with a credible threat of military action.
North Korea had signed all the agreements, including the NPT Non-proliferation Treaty. There were signatories to it for 17 years. That didn’t mean anything. There was no credible military threat. And therefore, they’re now a nuclear power. And half of Asia is quaking with fear.
Iran has been stopped or delayed by actions that again, I won’t detail. But if you’re not committed to taking the necessary action against Iran, then they will have a nuclear arsenal with deadly consequences for all of us and horrible consequences for their own people.
I think the answer – I don’t think, I know – the answer to your question is, we have the means and we have the will. And if necessary, we’ll do whatever is necessary to stop Iran from having a nuclear arsenal
AA:Even without the United States?
BN: Absolutely the actions that we took so far, and I’m not saying which ones we did, we did without the US. We didn’t do it with US approval because the US probably would disapprove. I mean, they were for many years going on with the assumption that they have to broker or reach a deal with Iran. And if we told them what it is, every operation, what we were about to take, you know, they would say “we oppose it,” in which case would be a direct conflict. Why do that? Just make you make your move. And secondly, it might leak. And if it leaks in The Washington Post, in The New York Times, then the Iranians would have forewarning, and our action would be nullified in advance.
So we’ve taken a lot of steps. We made a lot of operations that have rolled back Iran. But did we stop it? No. Are we committed to stopping it from achieving their goals? Yes. We’ll do everything in my power to achieve that goal.
AA:Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister. We have a question on Ukraine right now. Regarding the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, President Zelenskyy recently said that there’ll be no peace with Russia before Ukraine reclaims Crimea and Donbas. What side are you on in the Ukraine war, specifically as it pertains to Iran’s involvement? Will your government show intelligence for example with the Ukrainian governments about Iranian drones or the weapons? And do you plan to supply the defensive weapons to Ukraine that President Zelenskyy has asked for?
BN: Well, the recent supply of Iranian killer drones to Russia that are being used in the war with Ukraine is disturbing for two reasons. One, the human costs involved and two, this partnership [which] is troubling. I can tell you that our relationship with Russia obviously involved Iran, but paradoxically in a different way, because Iran was trying to use Syria, our northern border, as a staging ground for another Hezbollah-like front to open against Israel.
And they wanted to bring in a proxy army of about 80,000 people commanded by Iranian generals, stock it with missiles and other deadly weapons to be used against Israel. My policy was to prevent that, and we prevented it by, frankly, by taking air action. Bombing these installations and these forces from the air. And, of course, we were able to prevent that.
But that requires continual effort. And that effort involves Israeli pilots flying in the skies of Lebanon – sorry, the skies of Syria – and they’re in spitting distance from Russian pilots. Now, I remember when I was a young soldier almost half a century ago on the banks of the Suez Canal, we were shooting down Russian planes from the sky and with their anti-ground [and] anti-air batteries, they shot down our planes from the sky.
The last thing we want to do is have a military conflict between Russia and Israel. We don’t want it. I’m sure the Russians didn’t want it. So we actually, under my policy of actively preventing Iran from basing itself militarily in Syria, we reached an understanding with Russia that preserved Israel’s freedom of action on this important front. I’d like to continue to have that, but I’m also aware of the fact that we are being asked to supply defensive weapons to Ukraine.
I was asked about that and I said, look, I’ll look into this question as soon as I get into office. I’m still not there. I’m still involved in the least pleasant activity of politics, which is coalition forming. I don’t wish it on anyone. I’m actually taking a break right now and talking to you while this is happening.
Once I form the government, God willing, I hope it’ll happen in a few days. Then I’ll sit down with our people, learn from our intelligence people what’s happening, make a reasoned assessment, and then come back with an answer to your question.
AA:Mr. Prime Minister, there have been these strange rumors sporadically popping up in Washington and elsewhere that there’s a possibility of normalization between Israel and Syria and President Assad, there was pressure that was coming from one direction to the other. My question is, is there any credence to these rumors? Are they at least a reflection of some conversations going on? And is that a change to Israel’s policy vis a vis Syria?
BN: Not that I know of.
AA: Fair enough. In June, Tom Friedman of The New York Times said that President Joe Biden might be the last pro-Israel Democratic president because the base of the Democratic Party is moving against it. Would you agree with that? [Does] the high degree of aggressive partisanship in Washington these days mean that, in practice, regional states are dealing as much with the US political parties as they are with the American state itself?
BN: You know, I disagree with that, because I’ve heard these prognostications time and time again. First of all, about me when I took office — I would be the warmonger. And of course, the opposite has happened, my ten years in the prime minister’s office, more than any other prime minister in Israel have bought the safest decades for Arabs and Israelis alike.
Second, they said there’ll never be any more peace treaties, and that happened as well. Then they said that when I challenged President Obama in Congress and the JCPOA, it had caused an irreparable rupture of support among Democrats for Israel. Well, Gallup has a tracking poll, and they measured the support among Republicans and Democrats, the American people, as a whole.
Each year they ask the same question, you know, where does your sympathy lie? With Israel? And lo and behold, before the speech and after the speech, the differences, it went up by about 10 percent. It went up. Didn’t go down among Democrats. Okay.
What you see over time is this that support for Israel among Democrats is fairly high, but it’s stable. You know, it’s about 50 percent, something like that. Support among the Republicans has skyrocketed. It’s very high. So there’s a myopia because you think the Democrats are abandoning Israel. They’re not. It’s just that the Republicans have moved to a very strong Israeli position across the American political spectrum. Democrats, independents and Republicans. There is very strong and consistent support of the state of Israel.
This is not true of a part of the Democratic Party that has moved sharply to the left, you know, and it’s moved in some cases to a radical position and often against the wishes of a broad, broad constituency in the public. And I think that adjusts itself because, you know, I think people want to seize the center and every political movement, no matter how polarized it is, ultimately, you know, you govern by seeking to get the bulk of the people behind you.
So I don’t think that that basic attitude towards Israel is going to change. It’s changing among the chattering classes. It’s changing on the campuses. I don’t deny that. But I think that in many ways it’s a lot firmer and a lot more stable across the American public, both Democrats, independents and Republicans and independents alike. It’s more stable. But this is not the first time that op-eds in The New York Times have been wrong.
AA: Prime Minister. Getting back to the Palestine question now, beyond the Abraham Accords and beyond political tactics, because Palestinian leaders have really recognized Israel every which way possible —
BN: I disagree.
AA:Yeah, well, beyond that, shall we say, you are still stuck with 7 million Palestinians between the river and the sea. Given the dramatic power imbalance in Israel’s favor, you are not a reluctant bride that will be brought to the wedding. You are going to have to be the initiator. I mean, a final settlement is going to have to be driven by Israel, really.
Do you see yourself as a General de Gaulle? You use the words “out of the box” and “creative,” which seems to be what is needed now. Do you see yourself as a potential historical leader like General de Gaulle, who could come out with that out of the box and creative approach? For example, do you see the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan with its respected monarchy and mature government infrastructure, as able to play a role in in a final settlement of this perennial issue?
BN: Well, first of all, our relations with Jordan are critically important. And I think the stability, prosperity and security of Jordan as it is, is an Israeli interest. We may have our disagreements periodically [and] that happens and even in the best of families. But I think the importance, the integrity of Jordan is important. And, for example, Hezbollah and Iran try to topple that regime periodically and bring in hostile forces.
As far as General de Gaulle, General de Gaulle had a relatively easy problem. You know why? Because Algeria was not five miles from Paris.
AA:I mean, in the metaphorical sense, as a historic leader.
BN: But this leads to my answer to you, I think [that] to have a solution, you have to be realistic about its nature. And I think people have not been realistic about its nature. And here’s the principle that would guide me. I would say that the Palestinians should have in a final settlement all the powers to govern themselves, but none of the powers to threaten the survival and existence of the state of Israel.
And this requires a balance. It’s not an either-or proposition. It’s not zero-one. There is a balance in there. So far, we’ve not been able to get beyond first base because the Palestinians, as we all think, you know, I don’t think they said publicly to you maybe, but I’ve seen it, you know, I’ve seen it public[ly] and I’ve seen it privately, they really have to shake off the fantasy that Israel will disappear, that somehow, you know, we’ll make a tactical agreement with Israel, get the high ground over Tel Aviv, and eventually drive the Israelis out.
AA:Assume that they’ve given that up —
BN: That’s a big assumption.
AA:Is there a road map you would envision, that would be enthusiastically adopted by you.
BN: Yes, there are a few. Well, take a look, for example, at the at the peace initiative of President Trump. It’s not that I didn’t have reservations. I did. It’s not that I didn’t expect the Palestinians to have reservations about it as well. But I think it offers interesting solutions to how do you have this coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians in such a tiny area between the river and the sea?
It actually has some interesting new ideas, like looking at transportational continuity instead of territorial continuity, things of that nature. You can look at it. I don’t think people have actually read it. But are there possibilities for ending this conflict? I think there are.
But realistically, I think that the Palestinians will come around to genuinely making their peace with the existence of an Israeli state as we add other countries, and the most important country in the Arab world, we make a quantum leap that will, I think, solidify peace and sort of convince people, hey, it’s over. Israel’s here to stay. Now, let’s make our peace with it.
AA:Mr. Prime Minister, we have another quick question [about] Lebanon: After the Israeli leaks that Iran is smuggling weapons through the Beirut airport to Hezbollah, to what extent is the airport now subject to Israeli strikes?
BN: I really couldn’t say. I mean, you know, there was a rule in Israel that follows the rule of the United States over there. They say one president at a time. And in Israel, it’s one prime minister at a time. So I’ll be briefed on this question. But in general, I’d say that without the scaffolding of Iranian support militarily, political, financial, the whole structure of Hezbollah collapses, [and] there is no Hezbollah rule in Lebanon. And that’s who is ruling in Lebanon, Hezbollah. Let’s be open about that. But without Iranian support, they’d collapse overnight. And the same is true of other Iran’s other proxies. They need Iran’s support.
How do we prevent the smuggling of weapons to Hezbollah or for that matter, to Hamas? Well, there are many ways to do it. There are many ways in which my governments did it. But I can’t tell you what is happening in recent months. I’ll be able to at least know that within a few weeks, I hope, once I form the government.
AA: Thank you very much, Mr. Prime Minister. Thank you for all the time you’ve given us. Have an excellent day.
BN: Thank you and good luck to you, and good luck to Saudi Arabia.
Francis X. Maier:If we Christians who still have the blessings of religious freedom sleep, then the world our grandchildren inherit will be a world increasingly without the Cross, and without the truth.
History is a great teacher. According to oral tradition, when Emperor Justinian walked into the completed Church of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) on December 27, A.D. 537, he stared in silence for a long time at the immense beauty of the basilica he had commissioned before finally whispering, “Solomon, I have surpassed you.”
He was probably right. Hagia Sophia was the artistic triumph of a millennium. For 916 years, it permeated the daily life of the imperial city of Constantinople. No church anywhere in Christendom matched its scale or grandeur. Over the centuries, it became a symbol of Byzantine civilization. Orthodox Christians saw it as the center of their faith and a foretaste of heaven, described by one sixth-century writer as a place where “the golden stream of [God’s] glittering rays pours down and strikes the eyes of men, so that they can scarcely bear to look.”
Precisely for this reason, the first act of the city’s Muslim conquerors in A.D. 1453, as they sacked the city, was to convert this astonishing Christian church to a mosque. Over the following centuries, Muslim rulers destroyed or commandeered nearly all of the city’s remaining Christian churches. Even today, in modern Turkey, harassment of the Christian minority continues, often with the deliberate destruction of any physical evidence of the Christian past.
Hagia Sophia was closed as a Muslim worship site in 1931 by a then-aggressively secularist government. It reopened in 1935 as a museum but was again reconstituted as a mosque in 2020. Turkey has never acknowledged its guilt for the genocide of roughly 1 million Armenian Christians living within its borders in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And today barely 100,000 Christians remain in Turkey, a nation of 82 million with rising Islamist sentiments. A mere 600 Greek Orthodox families linger on in Istanbul (the former Constantinople), a city that once rivaled Rome for leadership of the Christian world.
We should reflect carefully on this history lesson. While European birth rates drop, and a secularized Europe spurns its Christian roots, Muslim immigration continues. Thus, as Christopher Caldwell detailed more than a decade ago, the religious and cultural landscape of Europe is dramatically changing – a trend further accelerated by high Muslim birth rates. Some Church leaders have begun to express concern. They’re right to do so.
Islam claims a common ancestry with Judaism and Christianity rooted in Abraham. But despite its formal respect for Jesus and Mary, it has very little in common with Christian faith. Islam denies the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Redemption. It denies the accuracy of the Gospels. It denies the origins and the purpose of the Church, and nearly every element of the Christian creeds. In fact, Islam acknowledges Judaism and Christianity simply to absorb them into its own story.
Whoever knows the Old and New Testaments, and then reads the Koran, clearly sees the process by which it completely reduces Divine Revelation. [emphasis in original] It is impossible not to note the movement away from what God said about Himself, first in the Old Testament through the Prophets, and then finally in the New Testament through His Son. In Islam, all the richness of God’s self-revelation, which constitutes the heritage of the Old and New Testaments, has definitely been set aside.
Some of the most beautiful names in the human language are given to the God of the Koran, but He is ultimately a God outside of the world, a God who is only Majesty, never Emmanuel, God-with-us. Islam is not a religion of redemption . . .
For this reason, not only the theology but also the anthropology of Islam is very distant from Christianity.
As a result, Muslim-Christian coexistence has always been uncomfortable and often ugly, usually at Christian expense. Much of North Africa and the Middle East once had a flourishing Christian civilization. Muslim invasions submerged and erased it. The (Christian) Byzantine Empire had already been resisting Muslim expansion for 400 years when Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade in 1095. The Spanish expelled Muslim occupiers only in the 15th century. Muslim armies were turned back from Vienna as late as 1689. Much of the tragic religious and ethnic hostility in the Balkans today can trace its roots to four centuries of Ottoman Turk (i.e., Muslim) occupation and repression.
And these difficult relations are not something from the remote past. Islamist attacks on Nigerian Christians are common. Today, Christians in Muslim-dominated states like Sudan, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Bangladesh, and Indonesia face everything from discrimination and harassment, to outright violence. The reason is simple. Prejudice against Jews and Christians has a long and unfortunate pedigree in Islam, despite claims to the contrary.
This doesn’t license abandonment of dialogue and earnest efforts at inter-religious cooperation. Human beings do have an instinct for love. On ground level, Muslim-Christian relations vary greatly and are often warm and mutually respectful. But it does demand that we bring realism, courage, and an accurate memory to our modern encounter with Islam. In the light of the Gospel, Mohammed is not a true prophet, and the Koran is not the Word of God. Muslims do not know the Jesus of John 14:6 – and without Christians who live their faith joyfully and vigorously, as an active witness to the Islamic world, they never will.
The last days of December are always a time for reflection; an opportunity to make sense of the past, take stock of the present, and set a course for the future. As Benedict XVI once noted, Christians are now the most persecuted religious community in the world. If we Christians who still have the blessings of religious freedom sleep, then the world our grandchildren inherit will be a world increasingly without the Cross, and without the truth.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2022-12-29 17:51:222022-12-29 17:51:22December Thoughts, Then and Now
T. Belman.I first connected with Howard when he started Mantua Books. Since then I have promoted his books and he has generously donated money in support of Israpundit. I too was born in Canada but in my case to two immigrants from Poland who came to Canada in the twenties. You will recall that the US shut the door to Jewish Immigration in the early twenties, ergo Canada. My father’s family were attracted to Communism and my mother’s family were attracted to Zionism.
I am a Canadian author who has written often for Israel National News, New English Review and Frontpage Magazine, with some of my essays carried also in Israpundit. I grew up in a small city about 15 miles from another small city where Ted Belman grew up.
I attained a degree in History from University of Toronto where I first became interested in cultural history and the history of ideologies and values. I later graduated from that university in Law and practiced for 20 years, before founding a company providing affordable rental housing in converted heritage buildings such as old churches and warehouses. I also founded Mantua Books, Canada’s sole pro-Israel and conservative and Torah values publishing house.
My writing is based on a traditional conservative or classically liberal understanding of ideologies and values and political culture. I am particularly interested in Islamism and left wing ideologies. The greatest influence on my writing is the Holocaust as my father was slave labor in Auschwitz and my father’s parents and then eight year old sister were murdered in the gas chambers. My mother was born in Canada to parents who fled Uman near Kiev in the Ukraine, in 1910. Since my mother grew up in peaceful Canada, I could distinguish a very different culture between my father’s family and my mother’s family.
I have written much criticism on Holocaust literature and commemorations.
My novel, The Second Catastrophe:, is very much in the genre of “Second Generation” literature as the protagonist is the son of a Holocaust survivor who is writing a book about Israel and becomes obsessed with what he sees as “Second Holocaust” this time directed at the Jews of Israel with explicit threats by the leadership of Iran that they will get nuclear weapons and use them against Israel. There is a sad parallel between the world in general and Diaspora Jews in particular, concerning the lack of action to stop explicit threats to our people.
Professor Norman Rosenfeld, my fictional cultural historian at a small Canadian university, has almost finished his new and controversial book about Israel and the Jewish people. He learns that his daughter, on a one-year study program at an Israeli university, has been injured in a terrorist attack. Rosenfeld, a widower, rushes to Israel, along with his father, an elderly Holocaust survivor, named “Lucky”. While in Israel visiting his injured daughter, at the height of the “Second Intifada”, Rosenfeld, an Orthodox Jew, meets and falls in love with a secular Israeli woman. This leads to discussion of the gulf between religions and secular Israelis. Chapters of the Professor’s book on Israel and the Jewish people are interspersed amongst the events of the novel. The dramatic events and difficulties of Rosenfeld’s life mirror catastrophic events in the life of the Jewish people. His journey to overcome these catastrophes is at the core of The Second Catastrophe.
By placing chapters of his book on Israel among the fictional events of his life, the reader can see how his life influences his writing and how his writing, (attacked by the usual anti-Israel crowd), then influences his life. The book is set in Israel during the Second Intifada and nine-eleven, and was written in Jerusalem during the height of the suicide bombings.
In my first non-fiction book, Tolerism, I argue that we in the West have entered an ideology of “Tolerism” – an unhealthy degree of tolerance without limits, and an excessive leniency towards those who represent the most intolerant and illiberal societies. Too many educated people think that tolerance is an important value when it is Justice that is stressed in the Torah, not tolerance. I observe how cultural and moral relativism, moral equivalency, and political correctness have all contributed to a modern political culture whose elites and cultural symbols evidence, not only an undue tolerance of the illiberals, but a disturbing element of self-hatred, cultural masochism, and delusions about the difference between social tolerance and political tolerance – and an elevation of tolerance over the principle of Justice.
In the follow-up to Tolerism, which I titled The Ideological Path to Submission … and what we can do about it, I trace the ideological pathway resulting from tolerance and explore certain ideologies that have emanated from tolerism and pose a danger of possible submission to the anti-liberal values of the Islamists. I look at such ideologies as Inclusive Diversity, Empathy, Denialism, Masochism, Islamophilia, Trumpophobia, Cultural Relativism, Postmodernism, Multiculturalism and the psychological factors that conduce to a flight from the anxieties of freedom to a submission to the enemy. I argue that Muslims who wish to share Western freedoms, need to support reformers and participate in their essential duty to reject the Islamists who seek Sharia Law and a world-wide Caliphate in lands where they immigrate to. The sooner we understand the ideologies that lead us from tolerism to submission to the enemy, and that we can have a moral replacement to postmodernism, and the sooner we follow the Israeli example of resistance, patriotism and social cohesion as a way to build social resilience, the sooner we in the West can reverse our losses and start winning this war.
During the years subsequent to the publishing of these books (available through Amazon) the problems I deal with in my three books have only become more serious and more dangerous. My prescience gives me no joy whatsoever; instead it motivates me to do whatever I can.
“One thing that I learned was the need to publish other pro-Israel authors, and that I could do it.” In talking to other authors and some professors, I realized as early as 2002 that mainstream publishing houses and media did not want anything to do with pro-Israel material. Even some bookstores were becoming loath to carry these books. I had taken early retirement from my law practice in order to concentrate on real estate development, but that new type of work did not occupy as much time as my law practice. So, without any contacts and in the face of illiberal political correctness and cancel culture, I decided that somebody had to take on the project of publishing books that also constituted weapons in our war to stop radical Islamism and its Western enablers.
I knew that there was no money in it – the refusal of media to carry book reviews meant that we had somehow to get publicity for our books from social media, which at the time was not as developed as it is now. I also realized that left wing university students and Islamists might well attack any authors for which we secured lectures or book signings. And I became the first victim of Islamist threats at a book lecture for my novel. See: http://scragged.com/articles/how-i-became-a-banned-author-in-canada
The irony was that my novel was about, in part, a pro-Israel university professor who gets in trouble at a lecture.
We also learned that organizations that were founded to speak out for authors and their freedom of expression, such as PenCanada and the Writers’ Union and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association refused to speak out in favour of Zionist Jews, our authors and books.
Since my real estate work was remunerative yet did not take up all of my time, I was able to do all the work needed for Mantua Books with one part-time secretary. I have had some health problems recently, so have had to pause some new releases.
Perhaps with my age (71) it is time to pass the torch, but people are not lined up to buy a publishing house that barely breaks even and which gets no governmental or media support. Here is a list of pro-Israel books (in addition to mine shown above) that we have published, with all of them available from Amazon:
David Solway – Hear O Israel
Stephen Schecter – Grasshoppers in Zion; Israel and the Paradox of Modernity
Giulio Meotti – The Vatican Against Israel
Paul Merkley – Those That Bless You I Will Bless: Christian Zionism in Historical Perspective
Pamela Peled – For the Love of God and Virgins
Salim Mansur – Delectable Lie; a liberal repudiation of multiculturalism
Dianne Weber Bederman – Back to the Ethic; Reclaiming Western Values
Dianne Weber Bederman – The Serpent and the Red Thread; The Definitive Biography of Evil
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2022-12-29 16:52:012022-12-29 16:52:01The Son of a Holocaust Survivor Weaponizes Books to Stop Another Shoah
The word ‘perspective’ is defined as 1) a view or vista, 2) a mental view or outlook and 3) the appearance of objects in depth as perceived by normal binocular vision.
One’s personal perspective is shaped by the information received during one’s lifetime and by the many events experienced, either directly or indirectly, as a result of that information. Information, and more importantly, what that information really means to any person or group of people, is dependent on the perspective of the listener. That perspective may differ along political, cultural and/or religious lines.
Thanks to the failed/failing public education system in the US, people, especially those of the generations from the past 30 years or so, have been conditioned to accept the ideas promoted by their “educators”, who for the most part, end up being their “propagandizers”. In essence, their perspectives have been decided for them, making it easy for them to be led in the direction desired by the propagandizers. Once headed in a certain direction, based on the information they are fed, they are easier to control and mold into the forms desired by the propagandizers.
People who have been programmed to accept as “truth/fact” information provided by the US public education system or the MSM, without giving serious thought to the source of the information, have a perspective that, whether they know it or not, was shaped by propagandizers with a specific agenda. That agenda is to gain a level of control over the thoughts and ideas of those who allow that perspective to guide their lives.
Perspective: Does It Matter and Why?
Nearly every person in the western world is bombarded on a daily basis with an overabundance of information, making ‘information overload’ a very real possibility. The MSM, as well as some ‘conservative’ media outlets, have morphed from a journalistic body that gathers and reports ‘news’, into a propaganda machine that not only fails to report ‘news’ in an unbiased manner but openly publishes and pushes the pervasive communistic agenda along with its own biased stance on issues that are of critical importance to Americans.
I have seen no polling or surveys that might indicate how the public reads, understands or accepts the mass of information it receives through all the MSM or social media platforms, but I would hazard a wager that no two people see or hear that information in the same way, or understand it in a consistent manner.
Many times the info is intentionally worded so as to be incongruous and thus open to various interpretations that can mean many things to many people. There are so few journalists now who understand how to place words together to make them mean the same thing to all people, but most seem to deliberately make their information confusing.
This ‘information blast’ aims to promote a perspective that benefits those pushing their agenda who use all media to get their information disseminated. That agenda has always included ‘mind control’ as a way of influencing a person’s thoughts, ideas and actions in a direction that will make the permanent long-term goal of physical control, or the ‘Ultimate Control’, easier to achieve.
From Perspective to Premise to Logic
The word ‘premise’ is defined as “a proposition or statement that is assumed to be true and upon which an argument is based, or from which a conclusion is drawn.
Logic is the study of patterns of reasoning by which the conclusion is ‘properly drawn’ from an established set of premises.
From the above definitions, the importance of the proper shaping of perspective cannot be overstated in a person’s life. If the perspective is biased in a particular direction based on the (possibly invalid) information one has received, the result will be the establishment of incorrect premises which will then create a flawed sense of logic and/or a flawed belief system.
From Premise and Logic to ‘Foundation of Belief’
Every person has some kind of perspective based on the information they have read, seen or heard and accumulated, and those perspectives determine the premises on which people rely to make good, logical decisions. If one is living with flawed or incorrect premises, the possibility of making sound decisions in any area of life is lessened.
I know there are people who consider themselves to be atheists who would argue they have no belief system at all. They seem to indicate that a person can go through life believing nothing. They might base that argument on the fact that their stance on any given subject is totally contradictory to the stance others, even a majority, might have, but rather than being a lack of belief, it actually proves the presence of some belief, albeit totally different from another person’s. Whether they know it or not, everyone DOES believe something, about almost everything.
The World’s Perspective
When people of one ‘perspective’ can interact peacefully with those of an opposing perspective, discussing their differences reasonably, rationally and logically, and can come to legitimate conclusions, that interaction can produce amazing results and sometimes the perspectives can be changed or at least, the parties can agree to work within the bounds created by each perspective to benefit all. That type of discourse was recognized as the way the system of US government was supposed to work, and did work for many years.
But what happens when reason, rationality and logic are tossed out the window and every person who represents a certain perspective decides that ONLY his perspective should be accepted and all others should be banned? This scenario will usually result in new division, or worsening of a present division, along political, racial or religious lines.
The world (unbelievers) accept as true the information that seems to be of value and validity to them, regardless of, and sometimes in spite of, any proof the information is valuable or even valid. Those who so easily accept this doubtful information tend to jump into areas where they ought not and fail to determine the possible consequences of their actions. This failure then allows the information received from a worldview to influence, or even build, a perspective that is usually in contradiction to that of the Christian view.
A serious problem with the world’s perspective is that is isn’t just one unified view or outlook. There can be as many different perspectives, or viewpoints/outlooks as there are ideas, thoughts or ideologies or even emotions in the world. (Yes, many viewpoints are established on emotion alone, without any consideration of the validity or value of them). Because the information used to establish these perspectives, or outlooks, is provided by many organizations or groups with varied belief systems and political agendas, and because that information can be changed almost immediately with a simple keystroke on a keyboard, most of the world’s perspectives change often and sometimes with grave consequences to those holding them.
Establishing a Christian Perspective
How does the Christian Perspective differ from that of a non-believer? The process of establishing the perspective is nearly the same: information is gathered and carefully considered as to its validity and value.
The person who claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ has, or should have established a foundation for that claim based on a thorough knowledge of the source of the information used to establish and guarantee the blessed promises contained within.
For the believer, that source MUST be the Bible, the words of prophecy and promise that God Himself inspired and provided to His prophets to pass on to His people, the Jews, and thence on to all non-Jews who would accept Jesus as the promised Saviour. The Bible is an accurate historical record and the outline of God’s plan for mankind, but it is far more than that: it is a complete book of instruction on how to live a satisfying and fulfilling life, one that, when the last breath has been drawn, will have been of great benefit to all were a part of it. Those instructions and promises are what truly sets the Christian apart from the unbeliever. The perspective it provides to the believer is one of steadiness that will give the believer an unshakable foundation on which to build and grow.
The Lord God, creator of the universe and everything in it, repeatedly tells us that HE DOES NOT CHANGE. That statement alone provides us the assurance that, if we adhere to His perspective, we too can maintain a properly established outlook that will serve us well in this life and beyond. Because He does not change, we are also expected to become, and remain, steadfast in our belief. This is one of the most important decisions we will make after we commit to following Jesus Christ as our redeemer and guide through life. He has provided HIS thorough guidebook, The Holy Bible, that lists every word inspired by Him and committed to us for success.
Having reached the conclusion that the information used to establish a Christian perspective is REAL and TRUE, the true believer must go even further and make the conscious decision that no other information can take precedence over that source for the remainder of his or her life. If that decision is made, and becomes one about which there is no questioning and from which there is no retreat, the perspective of a Christian’s life will not only become solidly established, but will never give way to the perspective(s) of the world, the propaganda which Satan has used for millennia to try to establish an evil kingdom on earth.
Maintaining The Christian Perspective
In Ephesians chapter 5, we are given a dissertation by Paul that will lead the believer through the morass of worldviews unto a place where living with a soundly established Christian perspective will enable the Christian to live a successful life.
And just to be clear, allow me to elaborate a little on what that successful life is. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with how much money you have accumulated or how many titles and/or degrees you have ‘earned’. True success in life will be determined by the words you will hear when standing at the Judgment Seat of Christ. If you hear, “Well done thou good and faithful servant; thou has been faithful over a few things, I will make the ruler of many things: enter thou in to the joy of the Lord” (Matthew 25:23 KJV), then you may consider your life to have been successful.
Paul tells the believers in Ephesus to be diligent in avoiding the errors of those still living in the darkness from which they came. He cautions them against allowing themselves to be deceived with “vain (empty, unprofitable) words” (v 6) which will hasten God’s wrath against those who use these deceptive tactics.
After being encouraged to refrain from partaking in the evil practices of the world, and instead to partake of the light that dispels all darkness, Paul warns us all to “walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (v 15-16).
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word ‘circumspectly’ is from the Latin words ‘circum’ (around) and ‘specere’ (to look), meaning to be wary, to look around carefully and it implies the surveying of all possible consequences before acting or deciding. Put into today’s words, it is saying “look before you leap”.
As we live day by day, we must be willing to honestly examine everything that we see or hear, any slight word that could lodge in our minds and, over time, bring wrong-thinking into play. These words are carefully crafted to sound good and desirable, even religious, but unless they line up with the premises we have established in forming our beliefs, they must be rejected as empty and useless. If accepted, they tend to produce actions on our part that could move us into a position of compromise.
This act of living circumspectly, constantly “looking around”, is more than just an outward viewing, it is also an inward viewing, peering diligently into our own souls to ensure that nothing found there is crossways of God’s word. In these times of ‘inward viewing’ we are to challenge every thought and if disobedient, bring them into captivity (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Conclusion
The apostle Paul, the writer of the book of Romans offers some sage advice on gaining and maintaining a Christian perspective. In Romans 12:1-2, he says: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
To clarify, we should 1) Present our bodies, (not to be slain or burned since Jesus has already done that once and for all time), but holy (set apart), acceptable to God (pleasing to Him), which is our reasonable service. We must NOT allow anything in this world to change us (conform us) into the image that seems right to the world, but we must allow God, through our obedience, to transform us to HIS image by the renewing of our minds (think of this command as a computer hard drive that has been ‘reformatted’ and reloaded with new data that aligns with God’s word (His will). This action will allow us to prove (Greek dokimazo, Strong’s 1381, pronounced do-kim-ad’-zo, meaning ‘to discern’) what the perfect (that which is complete, needing no further work) will of God is for our lives.
This Christian act will reinforce the perspective that MUST be a part of living a life pleasing to God. When done on a regular basis and as an act of commitment to a godly life, the proper perspective will become so ingrained that not even Satan himself can move a person from it.
That perspective, built only on the foundation of God’s word, will become a sound guide through every hardship, snare and stumbling block that can be used against us.
I have never been a fan of making “New Year’s Resolutions” but the beginning of a new calendar year is as good a time as any to make the decision to examine and ‘rework’ our perspectives as Christians. We are now living in times when that perspective is more important than ever. The world is constantly reinforcing their perspectives and their desire is to force them on us. If our own perspective, founded on God’s word, is strong and sure, theirs will have no impact on our lives.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2022-12-29 16:51:582022-12-29 16:51:58The Christian Perspective
Every so often, Sami Al-Arian emerges to opine on some domestic issue, reminding us of two things: He’s an inveterate liar who continues to whitewash his years of service to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). And a disappointing number of American academics are willing to ignore that record and treat him as a credible voice.
Al-Arian joined academics and attorneys last Wednesday for a webinar on “Global War on Terrorism and its Impact on Muslim Charitable Institutions.” It was sponsored by the Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA) in collaboration with Indiana University’s McKinney School of Law and its Muslim Philanthropy Initiative.
MLFA’s willingness to elevate Al-Arian at least is consistent. It helped fund his defense on terrorism related charges and criminal contempt. But why did two Indiana University branches see merit in lending their school’s prestige to a man recorded exhorting an audience with “Jihad is our path … Victory to Islam … Death to Israel”?
He meant it literally, telling his own 2020 academic meeting that the Muslim world “cannot realize its full potential without defeating and dismantling the Zionist project.”
No one on the MLFA/IU panel mentioned Al-Arian’s documented role on the PIJ shura council, or governing board, or the many times he publicly lied by denying any connection to the terrorist group.
Moderator Cindy M. Lott, director of Indiana University’s PhD. program in Philanthropic Leadership, described Al-Arian as “extraordinarily well known. He is the director of the Center for Islamic Global Affairs and Public Affairs Professor at Istanbul Zaim University in Turkey. He has numerous publications in many interrelated fields including education, research, religion, interfaith and he is coming at us today specifically around the areas of civil rights and human rights.”
But Lott was selectively dishonest in how she represented Al-Arian.
After pleading guilty in 2006 to conspiring to provide benefits to the PIJ, presiding federal Judge James S. Moody called Al-Arian “a master manipulator. You looked your neighbors in the eyes and said you had nothing to do with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. This trial exposed that as a lie. Your back-up claim is that your efforts were only to provide charities for widows and orphans. That, too, is a lie. The evidence was clear in this case that you were a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. You were on the board of directors and an officer, the secretary. Directors control the actions of an organization, even the PIJ; and you were an active leader.”
During Wednesday’s webinar, University of Wisconsin law professor Mark Sidel offered a different description of his colleagues, including Al-Arian. He thanked the organizers for including him on “this extraordinarily distinguished, other than me, group of participants and speakers.”
Academics Against Research
Al-Arian did run a charity. The Islamic Concern Project, also known as the Islamic Committee for Palestine (ICP), was incorporated in 1988 to pursue “the concept of brotherhood, freedom, justice, unity, piety, righteousness and peace” through “charitable, cultural, social, educational and religious” programs, records show.
But in private fundraisers, the ICP served a different mission.
“It is the active arm of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine,” Cleveland Imam Fawaz Damra said while introducing Al-Arian during a videotaped 1991 fundraiser. “We preferred to call it the ‘Islamic Committee for Palestine’ for security reasons.”
At the same event, Al-Arian urged his audience to give money to support the jihad.
“We want today’s Muslims to answer the call of God and to go to jihad,” he said. “… So whoever does not spend for the cause of God, will spend himself on the path to destruction and fire, God forbid! We ask God, praise and glory be to Him, to strengthen us with the truth, put the truth in our hearts and on our tongues, to bestow faith upon us, to bestow steadfastness upon us, to bestow jihad upon us, to bestow knowledge upon us, and to bestow unity upon us so that we will be united. So that we will confront our enemies united.”
At another event, Al-Arian asked, “Have we forgotten the Jews and who they are?” God “made [them] into monkeys and pigs … had cursed in this world and in the hereafter, and had imposed a punishment on them in this world until Judgment Day.”
The MLFA/IU panel, like virtually every group to host Al-Arian, did not find any of this pro-terrorism/antisemitic speech relevant in deciding whether to invite him. Nobody thought to ask how he can reconcile the two diametrically opposing images of his work. Rather, they let him spin more yarns of his own victimization….
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2022-12-28 16:51:162022-12-28 16:51:16Indiana University ‘Distinguished Panelist’ is Deported Palestinian Islamic Jihad Top Dog
Contrary to its cheerful name, Amazon Smile promotes the hateful agenda of far-Left ideologues, including one of the worst: The Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is actively engaged in the persecution of those who do not espouse its far Left agenda.
Many groups, along with Christian groups, which the SPLC has defamed are also on Amazon’s hit list, including Jihad Watch:
For years now, the notorious far-Left smear machine, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), has defamed opponents of jihad violence and Sharia oppression as “hate group leaders,” and Amazon has banned counter-jihad 501c3 charitable organizations from its Amazon Smile charity program on the basis of the SPLC’s “hate” listings.
Of course, the SPLC claims to look out for the oppressed, but does not care about the victims of the Sharia, such as infidel women and gays. There is also plenty of dirt on the organization. In 2019, employees at the Southern Poverty Law Center spoke out “against what they say is a culture of ‘racism and sexism.‘” Before that, even Politico posed the question of the SPLC: Has a Civil Rights Stalwart Lost Its Way?And in an article in USA Today, Jessica Prol Smith, senior newswriter and editor for Alliance Defending Freedom, wrote an article entitled: “The Southern Poverty Law Center is a hate-based scam that nearly caused me to be murdered.” Last year, the SPLC stopped monitoring black hate groups “because of ‘equity.’” In the SPLC’s view, only white groups are capable of hatred and incitement.
Despite the despicable record of the SPLC, Amazon Smile continues to trust in it and collaborate with it, in its ongoing efforts to “deny admission to Christian organizations that support traditional marriage and religious freedom.” Amazon has partnered with the SPLC to persecute Christians for their deeply held beliefs.
To believe in traditional marriage and support it is not the same as promoting hatred toward those who do not believe in it. You don’t see an organized Christian targeting of those who promote transgenderism and gay marriage. They may disagree, but they do not promote bullying, hatred and targeting, using the full power of activist media and willing businesses.
Amazon Smile continues to deny admission to Christian organizations that support traditional marriage and religious freedom, opting instead to place them on a proverbial naughty list by recommendation of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Amazon Smile allows customers who sign up to have 0.5% of their purchases donated to their favorite charity. Organizations on SPLC’s “designated hate groups” list, however, are barred from registering, according to Amazon’s website.
[A]mazon Smile continues to deny admission to Christian organizations that support traditional marriage and religious freedom, opting instead to place them on a proverbial naughty list by recommendation of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Amazon Smile allows customers who sign up to have 0.5% of their purchases donated to their favorite charity. Organizations on SPLC’s “designated hate groups” list, however, are barred from registering, according to Amazon’s website.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a hate group as an organization or collection of individuals that – based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities – has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics,” SPLC states. “An organization does not need to have engaged in criminal conduct or have followed their speech with actual unlawful action to be labeled a hate group.”
The SPLC accuses ADF of supporting sterilization for transgender people, likening LGBTQ individuals to pedophiles and claims that the Christian organization seeks to criminalize LGBTQ sexual behavior. ADF resoundingly denies all of the accusations and has a part of its website dedicated to combating SPLC’s claims….
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Well, it’s that time of year again, when many of us consider turning over a new leaf. Losing that extra weight, reading the Bible more, being kinder and gentler.
Here’s a worthwhile New Year’s Resolution. In 2023, I resolve to be….more grateful. I resolve to make thanksgiving a year-round proposition.
Ingratitude is deep in our nature. God said of His people in Hosea 13:6, “When I fed them, they were satisfied: when they were satisfied, they became proud: then they forgot me.”
That is a common pattern—that we forget God because we don’t think we need Him. But every beat of the human heart is courtesy of Jesus Christ. We do indeed need Him. And a key way to acknowledge that is to give Him thanks.
I read an interesting book recently. It’s called A Simple Act of Gratitude: How Learning to Say Thank You Changed My Life. Written by author John Kralik, it was a bestseller in 2010, but I had never heard of it until recently.
He tells how he was very depressed about his life until he learned to be more grateful. His career as a lawyer was in a nose dive. He was going through his second divorce, and he was living in shabby little apartment, with his mattress on the floor under a noisy air conditioner.
But what turned Kralik’s life around was the unshakeable conviction to become more thankful. Someone told him, “Until you learn to be grateful for the things you have, you will not receive the things you want.”
Soon thereafter, he embarked on a mission to regularly write sincere thank you notes to people who had done something kind to him. He ended up writing more than 700 of these notes, and it changed his life.
He concludes: “At the risk of making an unscientific and directly moral statement, I will say that writing thank-you notes is a good thing to do and makes the world a better place. It also made me a better man. More than success or material achievement, this is what I sought.”
Grateful people, which I’m evermore striving to be, focus more on what they have, not what they lack. And they express that gratitude to God and others.
I recently saw an editorial posted in an online health publication, called “Neuroscience Reveals: Gratitude Literally Rewires Your Brain to be Happier.”
The authors cite a 2015 scientific study, and ask, “When you say, ‘thank you,’ do you really mean it or is it just politeness to which you give little attention? Neuroscientists have found that if you really feel it when you say it, you’ll be happier and healthier. The regular practice of expressing gratitude is not a New Age fad; it’s a facet of the human condition that reaps true benefits to those who mean it.”
The 2015 researchers found that a group that actively practiced gratitude experienced happier results. The researchers even found that gratitude positively impacts our brains, physiologically.
Here is 21st century technology telling us: Giving thanks is good for you. Wait a minute, the Bible beat these researchers by 2000 years. Paul said to give thanks in all circumstances.
So how do we become more grateful? Well, someone noted that to thank, you need to think. We need to think about what God has done for us and to thank Him for it.
It’s great to keep a daily journal of things you are grateful for. Every day, especially during morning exercise, I try to come up with a list of a hundred things that I thank God for. It really rejuvenates my spirit.
One man who represents gratitude as a way of life is George Washington, “the indispensable man” who helped us become a free nation. There were many challenges that the “father of our country” experienced in the difficulties of leading a ragtag army of farmers and merchants against the strongest fighting force in the world at that time.
On repeated occasions, Washington saw God’s hand at work. He said no one should be more grateful than the citizens of this country for the freedom God has bestowed upon us. On one occasion he said an American is “worse than an infidel” if they refuse to acknowledge what God has done for us.
In our nation’s first Thanksgiving proclamation under his administration, Washington declared, “[I]t is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits.”
I think making gratitude a way of life (in 2023 and beyond) is a worthy goal to strive for. Says an old prayer: “Oh, God, You’ve given me so many things. Please give me one more thing: a grateful heart.”
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“How silently, how silently, the wondrous Gift is given,” Biden began. “There is a certain stillness at the center of the Christmas story. A silent night when all the world goes quiet and all the glamour, all the noise, everything that divides us, everything that pits us against one another, everything — everything that seems so important but really isn’t, this all fades away in stillness of the winter’s evening.
“And we look to the sky, to a lone star, shining brighter than all the rest, guiding us to the birth of a child — a child Christians believe to be the son of God; miraculously now, here among us on Earth, bringing hope, love and peace and joy to the world,” Biden said. “Yes, it’s a story that’s 2,000 years old, but it’s still very much alive today. Just look into the eyes of a child on Christmas morning, or listen to the laughter of a family together this holiday season after years — after years of being apart.” [Emphasis added]
The president has repeatedly claimed he is a “devout Catholic,” despite his support for leftist policies that go against church teachings, such as abortion. Pope Francis has referred to Biden’s statements on his faith and his stance on abortion as an “incoherence.”
Biden Botches the Words of the Declaration of Independence
During a March 2, 2020 campaign rally — one day before the so-called “Super Tuesday” presidential primaries in 14 separate states — Biden tried to recite the Declaration of Independence but bungled the words badly, saying: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, all men and women created by — go, you know the, you know the thing.” The Declaration of Independence actually reads as follows: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Biden also mistakenly referred to Super Tuesday as “Super Thursday” before correcting himself…
We at The Washington Stand wish you and yours the happiest of holidays, and offer you this collection of Christmas-themed pieces as you celebrate the incarnation of Christ. Our daily email will return January 3, 2023, but we will continue to post articles on the site next week. We as TWS are thankful for your readership, and we’re privileged that you’ve joined us as we’ve launched this new endeavor. May the Lord bless you and keep you as we honor the birth of Jesus and enter into a new year!
Christmas is wonderful because, in a world of such strife and division, it is a holiday that celebrates hope and joy. What better news is there than that God has taken on flesh, being born of a woman, for us and our salvation? But perhaps this news sounds familiar and even tired to you. It could also be that the turbulence that now characterizes so much of public life and public-square engagement has worn you down. Many of us know today that, in a deep way, we need the refreshment of a good theological reset.
Praise God, that’s exactly what Christmas provides. In what follows, let’s consider four truths related to the coming of Christ that yield encouragement for weary people like you and me.
First, Christmas reminds us that the providence of God is always active. The Christmas story is not neat and tame. It’s actually pretty wild. Consider how politics and danger are entwined in the birth of Christ. A crazed pagan governor named Herod wrongly thinks that the Christ-child has landed on the earth to dethrone him. He sends out a search party of wise men that is supposed to lead him straight to the usurper. In a tangled web of circumstances, the wise men decline to honor Herod’s unrighteous command, and an angel visits Joseph to send him, Mary, and baby Jesus to Egypt (Matthew 2:7-15).
If you were writing your own narrative about how the Messiah would come into the world, a crazed pagan governor would almost certainly not fit into your plans, and you would not send the family of Jesus into Egypt (the overtones of the Exodus are thick here). Yet this is exactly how God structured things according to His perfect plan. The Father has wisely laid everything out, and we can fully trust His good design (Ephesians 1:3-14). But we must also know this: His plans may not always looklike they are unfolding. If we feel that way, and we all will, we can remember how God brought Jesus into the world, and what a strange mix of people and events played a role in the birth of the Savior.
Second, Christmas reminds us that your duty is not to track God’s doings, but to trust His character. When Mary first hears that she is going to bear the Messiah, she scarcely knows what to say or do. Luke 1:29-31 records the interaction between Mary and the angel: “But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.” Mary did not yawn at the angel’s announcement; she was “greatly troubled” and quite confused.
We all feel a lot like Mary at times. We do not know what is happening either at large or in our own little corner of things. We too feel “greatly troubled.” We can easily slip into anxiety, fear, doubt, or anger at God in such moments and seasons. In such instances, we all need a strong dose of Mary’s trusting spirit. Mary did not understand all God was doing, but she did not doubt God. She trusted God and kept walking forward in faith. We see this truth in Mary’s example: When you fight by God’s power to trust God’s plan, you will eventually see God’s hand in clearer form.
Third, Christmas reminds us that God uses the humble and simple things of the creation for His glory. This is what we all know about the incarnation: Christ was born in a stable. It’s quite beautiful, really: Christ wasn’t born in a palace. Like Adam in the garden of Eden, Christ entered the world surrounded by life, by living things, by animals, by the humble elements of the earth. This all happened because of political events: “A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered,” we read in Luke 2:1. As a result, “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (2:7).
What a beautiful reminder this is that God dignifies what is humble. We can say it more strongly: God exalts the humble. We do well to remember the humility of the Son of God in His coming and all throughout His days on earth when we feel wronged, slighted, not recognized, and passed over. Injustice is real, but the Christian is not a grasper. In prayer, we should instead embrace a humble, simple, quiet life, whether our names are well-known or unknown. The most famous man in human history, after all, died on the cross as the servant of His people.
Fourth, Christmas reminds us that there is always hope in the darkness. If you had been present beside Joseph and Mary, you would not have felt the earth tremble. While the virgin conception is miraculous, the virgin birth was ordinary. But in this ordinary delivery of a child, all the hope of salvation can be found. This was the appointed time. This is when the King landed. This is when the devil began to sense that his hour of defeat was drawing nigh. We get a sense of all this in Galatians 4:4-5, which reads: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”
In terms of the stable and the difficulties of the situation, the circumstances of Jesus’ birth did not look like “the fullness of time.” But God is working even in the toughest and strangest moments of our days. If you need some deep encouragement after a long and wearying year, remember this. By faith and repentance both in the hour of salvation and for the rest of your life as a work of growth, God is working a miracle in you. He did so not only in Bethlehem, though; He is doing so now, wherever faith in Christ and repentance in His name is found.
As far as the curse goes, God’s grace goes further.
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Iran’s back is against the wall. The Islamic Republic was reluctant to show its characteristic brutality toward protesters while it still hoped for world support in the form of a revived nuclear deal. The country has been under a microscope since protests began.
Last week, the UN removed Iran from women’s rights committee, of which it should never been part of in the first place. Biden also admitted that the Iran nuke deal is dead, but this still hasn’t been officially announced.
The nuclear deal with Iran “is dead,” Biden admitted, even as he was maintaining that he won’t announce the JCPOA has died. pic.twitter.com/cKnnz6UH2B
As Iran grapples with a revolution that it intensifying, including the formation of underground groups uniting to overthrow it, the Islamic regime warned of coming executions in early December. The regime’s desperation grows. Now it is once again using fear and terror to crush anti-government protests.
by Sanam Mahoozi and Alexander Smith, NBC News, December 19, 2022:
LONDON — Iran’s government has spent months violently cracking down on protests gripping the country. Now it has started hanging people in public — an approach some demonstrators and experts see as a desperate attempt to crush the dissent that has posed an unprecedented challenge to the clerical regime.
The first known executions of people arrested over the months of protests prompted an outcry from Western governments and human rights activists, but they came as little surprise to those involved in the demonstrations or carefully watching from afar.
“They want to create fear for the people who are involved,” Saeed, a business owner in his 30s from Tehran who is very active backing the protests on social media, said by voice note. As with all those interviewed for this story inside Iran, NBC News is identifying him only by his first name to avoid possible retaliation by the regime.
“They want to show the public that their actions will not go unpunished and that there are rules in the system,” he added, and so “families stop their children from going out to protest.”
Last Monday, officials publicly hanged a man from a construction crane in Mashhad, according to Mizan, a judiciary-run news agency. Majidreza Rahnavard was accused of “waging war on God” after he was accused of stabbing to death two members of the pro-government Basij militia in the northeast city. Human rights groups and Western governments say Iran’s judicial system is based on sham trials behind closed doors.
A week earlier, Iran executed another man, Mohsen Shekari, alleging he blocked a road in Tehran and stabbed a pro-government militia member who required stitches. Around a dozen other people have been sentenced to death, according to human rights groups.
“The regime knows it is fighting for its life,” said Abbas Milani, the director of an Iranian studies program at Stanford University. In the past, the regime has been “busy simply containing” demonstrators, he added. “Now they need to put the fear in people’s hearts again.”
Executions by hanging are far from rare in Iran, which Amnesty International says put 314 people to death last year, the most in the world after China.
But many activists and analysts alike believe the Islamic Republic is using the death penalty to terrify demonstrators into silence, after other attempts failed to quell the most significant wave of dissent since its founding revolution in 1979.
“This is very standard playbook by them; they have done this at previous protests” said Ali Ansari, a professor of Iranian history at St. Andrews University in Scotland. But this time, “if anything, they are moving quicker now to execute protesters with sham trials that even their own side are criticizing.”……
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The following is adapted from an online presentation recorded at Hillsdale College on October 18, 2022.
On the mezzanine floor of the Parker House Hotel in Boston hangs a mirror, still today. In the late fall of 1867, this mirror hung in the apartment at the hotel occupied by the great English novelist Charles Dickens, and he spent hours studying himself in it as he practiced for what would become immensely popular readings of his classic story, A Christmas Carol, which had been circulating in America for 25 years. Dickens gave his first public performance, with great success, on December 2, 1867, at the Tremont Temple in Boston. This was the same temple at which Frederick Douglass and thousands of others had waited for word of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation just a few years earlier, in the midst of the Civil War.
After his Boston readings, Dickens traveled for months as far north as Portland, Maine, inland to Buffalo, New York, south to Washington, D.C., and always back to Boston, performing A Christmas Carol and other stories before enthusiastic audiences. Since that time, Americans have seen Dickens’ story adapted in every medium invention can imagine, from the stage to silent films, radio, talking feature films, and animations. There is a Mickey Mouse version, a Fred Flintstone version, and a Muppet version. There have been television musicals, HBO specials, and video games accessible in cloud-based gaming libraries.
As was noted in The New York Times in the 1860s, “Dickens brings the old Christmas into the present out of bygone centuries and remote manor houses, into the living rooms of the very poor of today”—and over time, Dickens’ Christmas became an inseparable part of American Christmas. Every year, the elderly miser Ebenezer Scrooge is transformed once again by visits, on Christmas Eve, from the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmases Past, Present, and Yet to Come. Every year, Scrooge puts behind him his “Bah! Humbug!” response to Christmas and becomes as good a keeper of Christmas as any man alive and as good a man as could be found in good old London, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world. And every year, Tiny Tim ends the story: “God bless Us, Every One!”
At the time of the American Founding, celebrations of Christmas in America varied widely, from Puritans and Quakers who shunned or ignored it, to other Protestant sects and Catholics who honored it in their own Christian ways, to those who spent the day in “riot and dissipation,” like an ancient Roman Saturnalia. But E Pluribus Unum—out of many one—was the American motto on the Great Seal, and over the generations, out of many ways of celebrating or ignoring Christmas, came a recognizably American way.
Washington Irving, renowned author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, contributed to this with Christmas sketches he published in 1819 describing the charms of old English Christmases, when all around is joyful, and sacred solemnity is blended with mirth and conviviality; where pious worship is joined by revelry, feasting, spiced wine, dancing, caroling, mistletoe, presents, decorations, Yule logs, and a “general call to happiness.”
Irving became a special advocate for St. Nicholas and helped found the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York. Independently of his efforts, in 1823, the anonymously published poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” created rhymes and images that became part of American Christmas ever after:
’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. . . . When what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
As years went by, cities grew, and commerce flourished, the private celebrations of American Christmas became more public. City, town, and village centers were decorated for the season. Department stores like Macy’s and Woolworth found increasing numbers of customers shopping for Christmas gifts. They put on elaborate Christmas displays with lights, decorations, mechanical toys, and live Santas. By 1856, President Franklin Pierce put up the first Christmas tree in the White House. In 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed legislation declaring Christmas a federal holiday. In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge lit the first National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse.
Hollywood, of course, joined in the festivities. As America was just getting started in World War II, Bing Crosby, co-starring with Fred Astaire in Holiday Inn, sang Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” which went on to become—and remains—the most popular record ever made. The war was no sooner over than director Frank Capra gave us the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life, in which protagonist George Bailey, in his own way, needs as much Christmas redemption as Scrooge. Miracle on 34th Street came out the next year—another Christmas classic. Soon Gene Autry was recording Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and selling two million copies during its first Christmas season. Later generations would get Home Alone and Die Hard.
And from Dickens to Die Hard, running through and making possible all these charming and uplifting stories that have become part of American Christmas, is the original Christmas story, which most Americans from the earliest days would have read in the King James Version—even as Linus did in the 1965 animated classic A Charlie Brown Christmas:
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
New Year’s Day is the morning of the year. Like the mornings of mere days it inspires fresh hope, but on an immensely grander scale. Each morning we wake, after disappearing in sleep for a split second of eternity, surprised again to find ourselves still here. Like strong coffee, the discovery is rejuvenating. Then we reflect that we have once again successfully spun around earth’s axis; if we’re at a northern latitude somewhere between Santa Fe and Cheyenne, we have traveled 20,000 miles since yesterday, just spinning from day to night and back to day. We begin to wonder at ourselves and take on small but innocent airs. When we further reflect that without batting an eye or breaking a sweat, we have rocketed over a million and a half miles in our orbit around the sun since this time a day ago, and that we are now going to start over and perform these same mysteries and miracles again in a mere 24 hours, we become almost tempted to the sin of pride; we feel that the Frenchman might have stumbled onto something when he counseled that audacity is always the right approach, unless it is more audacity that is required.
So it is every New Year’s Day, but on a scale at least 365 times more inspiring. Now we reflect that just in our daily rotations, we have spun over 7,000,000 miles since last year, and in our orbiting, we have sailed an unthinkable 568 million miles through space. Once again, astonishingly and without mishap—leaving aside the odd war, depression, or plague—we have revolved around the sun and come back to where we started, to begin anew. Winter has turned to spring, summer to fall, and back to winter. This cosmic new beginning inspires no mere quotidian optimism, but a kind of Napoleonic ambition. It’s a new year with no mistakes in it! The world is ours to conquer! And this no doubt is what inspired the ancient custom of New Year’s resolutions.
Often our New Year’s resolutions are lighthearted, and usually, the flesh being weak, they are fleeting. Before Valentine’s Day or maybe even before Epiphany, we have slipped back into our old ways. But these lighthearted resolutions reflect a deeper, more serious impulse. Inspired by the miracle of the New Year, we sense anew, as Thomas Jefferson put it, that “Almighty God hath created the mind free,” that this freedom of the mind equips and therefore obliges us to seek the truth that we should be guided by—that all nobility, all that is worthwhile in life, depends on finding this truth and living by it, and failing to seek it with all our heart, mind, and soul is to let our lives slip through our fingers like water.
Animated by something approaching such New Year’s Day ambition, Benjamin Franklin once conceived “the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.” Like most of us, he thought he knew well enough what was right and wrong and saw no reason why he shouldn’t be able always to do the one and avoid the other. He soon found that it was not as easy as he supposed it would be. On further reflection, it occurred to him that his effort to achieve perfection might even be what he laughingly called a kind of “foppery in morals.” Still, looking back on his efforts, he was confident that they had made him a better and a happier man than he otherwise would have been. So it is, I think, with our New Year’s resolutions. Even if we fall short, we are better men and women for having resolved to try.
“Resolution,” in fact, was one of the virtues Franklin listed among a dozen others he aspired to acquire in his effort to achieve moral perfection. He defined resolution this way: “Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.” It was precisely this that he found most hard to do. And failing at this, of course, he could not succeed in achieving temperance, justice, moderation, or any of the other virtues he put on his aspirational list. Not even humility. Resolution seemed to be the key.
In his epistle to the Romans, St. Paul described what Franklin experienced and what we annually experience with our New Year’s resolutions: “[T]he good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”
Shakespeare’s Hamlet assessed the problem memorably from another angle, reflecting how
the native hue of resolution Is sickled o’er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment . . . their currents turn awry And lose the name of action.
When he was a relatively unknown lawyer in Illinois in his early 30s, Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to his good friend Joshua Speed, showing that he had experienced what Franklin, St. Paul, and Hamlet had experienced:
I must regain my confidence in my own ability to keep my resolves when they are made. In that ability, you know, I once prided myself as the only, or at least the chief, gem of my character; that gem I lost—how, and when, you too well know. I have not yet regained it; and until I do, I can not trust myself in any matter of much importance.
Franklin was not wrong to aspire, however imperfectly, to be a man whose resolves are what they ought to be and who keeps his resolves. Such a man is worthy of complete trust. Lincoln was hesitant to trust himself in any matter of much importance until he knew he was such a man. And he became one; so that, in the greatest crisis of his country, he could with utter rectitude invite a whole people to join him and “highly resolve . . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” His example, which he learned from the original American revolutionaries, gives us eternal reason to hope that, though the flesh is weak, we might yet ourselves succeed in living up to the most needful New Year’s resolution, and highly resolve to live “with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.”
On New Year’s Day 1863, after a sleepless night and three hours of shaking hands at a New Year’s reception in the White House, President Lincoln returned to his office to sign the document he had promised 100 days before. On September 22, Lincoln had proclaimed “That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” Now the day had come.
Allen Guelzo tells the story in his fine book, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. As Lincoln prepared to sign the historic document, at first his hand was trembling so much from all the handshaking that he couldn’t do it. He told those present, “I never in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right than I do in signing this paper. . . . If my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when I sign the Proclamation, all who examine the document hereafter will say, ‘He hesitated.’” When his hand recovered its steadiness, he wrote out his full name, as he did only for state documents. Then he smiled and said, “That will do.”
The Proclamation was the cause of great jubilation among many abolitionists, black and white. In Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and other cities, salutes of 100 cannon were fired on New Year’s Day. In Tremont Temple in Boston, Frederick Douglass spoke to a mostly black crowd of 3,000. When the Proclamation was read aloud, “the joyous enthusiasm manifested was beyond description . . . the whole audience rising to their feet . . . shouting at the tops of their voices, throwing up their hats.” But the jubilation was far from universal.
Many—not just in the South—condemned the Proclamation as the act of a dictator. The newly elected Democratic Governor of New York denounced it as a “bloody, barbarous, revolutionary, and unconstitutional scheme.” There was talk that the people of the West would withdraw from a war they had entered for the sake of Union and which Lincoln had turned into an anti-slavery crusade. Many feared that Union armies would mutiny. The border states, on which Lincoln depended desperately, worried that the Proclamation would send tens of thousands of escaped slaves pouring across their borders.
No one understood the political vulnerabilities of the Proclamation better than Lincoln. Following his September announcement, the Democratic Party declared political war on emancipation and spoke of the Proclamation as the death knell of the Republican Party. On the other side, the radical Republicans were furious that Lincoln hadn’t made emancipation universal and immediate, and they threatened to cut off funding for the war.
Lincoln also understood better than anyone the constitutional challenge to emancipation. He took the greatest care to draft the Proclamation in terms that could be defended before the highest court in the land, and he knew well that it was vulnerable to a hostile or even a merely scrupulous Court. On New Year’s Day, in the reception just before signing the Proclamation, he had shaken the hand of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, before whose Court emancipation would certainly not be safe.
In any case, Lincoln was keenly aware that it was far from certain he would win a second term as president, and his successor would in all likelihood be a foe of emancipation. Even if he won a second term, it was by no means certain that the Union would win the war. Failure to win would certainly put an end to emancipation. And even if the Union did win, when the war was over, what standing would the Proclamation have, given that Lincoln had felt constitutionally constrained to issue it as a matter of military necessity? Constitutionally and politically, the Emancipation Proclamation was a profound mixture of a great statesman’s goodness, caution, and daring.
As it turned out, Lincoln did win a second term and the Union did win the war. And so, in the last weeks of his life, he “left no means unapplied” to getting the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, approved by Congress. A constitutional amendment, he said, would be “a King’s cure for all the evils. It winds the whole thing up.” He did not live to see the Thirteenth Amendment ratified. But this was the consummation, the completion, of the Proclamation he had signed on New Year’s Day two years before—the Proclamation he called “my greatest and most enduring contribution to the history of the war . . . the central act of my administration, and the great event of the 19th century.”
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Two years ago a doctoral student in “religious studies” at a major public university in California was asked what he would do if he had a time machine. He answered that he would “assassinate Jesus of Nazareth.” Somehow, in his thinking, the world would be better off without Jesus and the movement He has spawned.
What if Jesus had never been born? Dr. D. James Kennedy and I asked that question back in 1994 when we co-authored the book by that title.
In effect, the premise of this book is that because Jesus was born, look at all these incredible things that have happened—and continue to happen—because of Christian influence.
The doctoral student and his ilk might say, “Well, if it weren’t for Christianity we would have been spared the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem Witchcraft Trials.” That seems fair enough, but as Dr. Kennedy and I emphasized in addressing these and other “sins of the church,” these aberrations (the most recent of which occurred about 330 years ago) are contrary to the teachings of Jesus.
Meanwhile, an incalculable number positive things came directly because of the love of Jesus as the Gospel spread(s) around the world.
For instance, the Christian church created the phenomenon of the hospital and has erected hospitals all over the world. To this day hospitals all around us bear names reflective of their Christian origin—Holy Cross Hospital, St. Luke’s Presbyterian, Baptist Hospital, etc.
Through His Church, Jesus Christ unleashed the forces of charity in our world. Out of love for Him, this very day, tens of millions of people around the globe will receive help through one branch of His church or another.
Christ’s influence is so profound that He has divided time into Before Christ and Anno Domini (“in the year of our Lord”). Of course, the politically correct way of saying this now is B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era). But Jesus’ birth is still the basis for how we measure time.
Christianity has inspired some of the world’s greatest art and music. That includes beautiful Christmas music, like Handel’s Messiah.
Also, Christianity has expanded education from the elites only to the masses—even creating the phenomenon of the university around the year 1200.
Prior to the coming of Jesus Christ, human life on this planet was exceedingly cheap. But where the Gospel penetrated, human value and dignity were elevated.
Also, Christianity and the Bible played a pivotal role in creating America as a free nation, beginning with the Mayflower Compact written by the Pilgrims in 1620, where they said they came here “for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.”
They instituted the essence of the American experiment—self-rule under God—which continued through other founding documents, culminating in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution in 1787.
Other such documents include Rev. John Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity” sermon in 1630, when he told his thousands of fellow Puritans who founded Boston: “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.” The Puritans would go on to found Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth, for the spread of the Gospel of Jesus.
The Puritans who founded Connecticut produced the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut in 1639, declaring their colony existed for “the liberty and the purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus.” There is a line of descent directly from this written constitution to the American Constitution. That’s why Connecticut is called to this day “the Constitution State.”
George Washington, the father of our nation, said that we can never hope to be a happy nation unless we imitate “the Divine Author of our blessed Religion”—Jesus Christ. And I could go on and on. In short, no Jesus, no America as founded.
Recently, we at D. James Kennedy Ministries have produced a documentary on this theme, called “What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?” based on our original program from 2002.
Beautifully shot on location in Europe and in various places in America, it includes brilliant comments from Os Guinness, Craig A. Evans, Nancy Pearcey, and Rabbi Daniel Lapin.
In the original version, I interviewed the late Rev. E.V. Hill, who pastored in Watts in the Los Angeles area. He told us one of the most memorable soundbites ever.
He said, “Right today, a lady asked me, ‘Well, you fellows are preaching, but it ain’t working.’ And I said to her, ‘You know, you can literally go down a street and smell body odor. The soap companies are failing to get their message over.’ And she said, ‘No, no, there’s nothing wrong with the soap, you’ve got to use it.’ Well there it is. There’s nothing wrong with Jesus Christ, you’ve got to accept Him.”
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Who on earth possesses the unmitigated insolence to publicly assert a Christian, Italian and family identity?
In the wee hours of Monday, September 26, thousands of Italian patriots rallied in Rome. The star attraction was a diminutive down-to-earth family-friendly fireball who had just made history with a stunning election victory. She hurled a bolt of verbal lightning that electrified Europe and made headlines around the world:
Why is the family an enemy?… Because it is our identity… so they attack national identity, they attack religious identity, they attack gender identity, they attack family identity. I can’t define myself as Italian, Christian, woman, mother. No. I must be citizen x, gender x, parent 1, parent 2. I must be a number. Because when I am only a number, when I no longer have an identity or roots, then I will be the perfect slave at the mercy of financial speculators. The perfect consumer.
Talk about speaking truth to power! That’s boldly calling out the noxious globalist ideology driving Western decline! But there’s more:
We want to defend the value of the human being. Every single human being, because each of us has a unique genetic code that is unrepeatable. And like it or not, that is sacred. We will defend it. We will defend God, country and family… Because we will never be slaves and simple consumers at the mercy of financial speculators.
This is Italy’s new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
I’ve never heard any politician so perfectly explain what we’re up against and why we fight.
When you watch this video, you’ll quickly realize why the establishment is afraid of her. pic.twitter.com/CswR8o3mjg
Who on earth possesses the unmitigated insolence to publicly assert a Christian, Italian and family identity? Don’t we know that mere mortals are meant to be melded into a mammoth monetized multicultural mélange? Who dares resist?
Her name is Giorgia Meloni, a petite (5’4”) proudly Italian lady who unabashedly professes allegiance to “God, country and family.” Forty years ago that would be expected of anyone in public life. Today it is considered “controversial” by ruling elites.
Ms. Meloni heads Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), the leading party in a family-friendly coalition that vaulted to victory in Italy’s elections. She’s on track to be the next Prime Minister.
How could somebody like that win a national election in Europe? One reason is that so many folks have had it with globalist economics and its relentless politically correct, anti-family, anti-Christian, anti-White, uber-woke propaganda.
Far out! No, “far right” says PC media. The New York Times: “Her proposals, characterized by protectionism, tough-on-crime measures and protecting the traditional family, have a continuity with the post-Fascist parties…” So protectionism, being tough on crime and protecting the traditional family are Fascist? To paraphrase Patrick Henry when he was accused of treason, “If this be Fascist, make the most of it.”
Whatever the New York Times calls it, any disagreement with the woke globalist narrative means the PC smear bund gins up the bile, screaming “racist,” “bigot,” “xenophobe,” “Fascist,” “Nazi,” whatever. That is meant to frighten us. It doesn’t work anymore. Fuhgeddaboudit.
Back to Italy, where a pro-family politician is in the saddle. Yours truly loves the place. But Italian heritage is fading as Italians slowly disappear. No matter how much they may believe in God, country, and family, they need to start practicing it. The loss of faith, globalist debt financing, materialism, consumerism, and all-or-nothing careerism have taken a grim toll. Italy’s population is projected to shrink 50 percent by century’s end.
Don’t believe it? According to Italy’s Ministry of Education, University and Research:
This year in Italy, 121,000 fewer students will enter school than last year. …Last year… 196 schools were closed. …Every year Italy loses 1-2% of its pupils. …During the last eight years, according to data published by the ministry, 1,301 schools have shut…
This crisis is not a projection, it is happening right now. By 2050, 60% of Italians will have no brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles or aunts. The Italian family, with the father who pours the wine and the mother who serves the pasta to a table of grandparents, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, will be gone, as extinct as dinosaurs.
Those who profess pride in their Italian heritage should look in the mirror. They are abandoning that heritage by not replacing themselves. Italy had just under 400,000 births last year, the fewest since Italian unification in 1861.
EU number-crunchers say that if current trends continue, by 2080, 50 percent of those living in Italy will be of African or Asian descent.
Ms. Meloni is aware of this:
I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am Christian, you won’t take it from me. I’m ashamed… I’m ashamed of a state that doesn’t do anything for families, I’m ashamed of a state in which everyone talks about free day care but nobody makes them. Fratelli d’Italia submitted the proposal. Rejected.
A video remix of Giorgia Meloni’s fiery ‘I am Giorgia’ speech
Such a government undeniably deserves shame, and Ms Meloni’s stunning victory is bringing it on.
Ms. Meloni’s 2019 speech to the World Congress of Families had gone viral. Here is some of what she said now censored by Google’s YouTube:
They said it’s scandalous for people to defend the natural family founded on marriage, to want to increase the birth rate, to want to place the correct value on human life, to support freedom in education, and to say no to gender ideology.
[We fight for the] right of a woman to be a mother and not have to give up working as a result. The right to be a mother, choose not to work, and not starve to death as a result. The right of a woman forced to have an abortion because she has no alternatives.
Ms Meloni also voiced opposition to surrogacy and child gender transition hormone therapy. But what she said during her campaign really set the woke set ablaze:
Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology, yes to the culture of life, no to the abyss of death, no to the violence of Islam, yes to safer borders, no to mass immigration, yes to work for our people.
Far-right or family-friendly?
How did we get to where advocating for national identity and family values incurs the wrath of the establishment?
Let’s hope that Giorgia Meloni’s new government delivers. It will be a challenge, as Italy is a fiscal basket case. But if the state doesn’t champion families, what good is it?
Fear not, Italians. Our flesh and blood humanity is not valued by economic utility. Embrace tradition. Put family first. Turning the tide will be a very tall order. But if anyone can get it started, Giorgia Meloni can.
From her victory speech:
Chesterton wrote, more than a century ago… “Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two makes four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.” That time has arrived…
Louis T. March has a background in government, business and philanthropy. A former talk show host, author and public speaker, he is a dedicated student of history and genealogy. Louis lives with his family… More by Louis T. March
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2022-12-21 06:51:572022-12-21 06:51:57‘I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian!’ Italy’s unashamedly, defiantly pro-family new leader
All I want for Christmas is my two front breasts. You see, I dabbled in political transgenderism. I believed what the communist transgender activists told me, in what the doctors and psychologists were selling me so they could line their own pockets, and in what my supposedly supportive school counselors were pushing me to do even though I wasn’t sure. But now I regret it – big time. It’s the worst mistake I’ve ever made and I’ve screwed up my life.
I was 13 when it started. I started thinking maybe I was in the wrong body. “If you don’t like your body, that’s a sign you’re trans,” social media influencers said. I thought transitioning would help me with my depression and suicidal thoughts. Change my name and pronouns and all my troubles would disappear. Lots of girls around me were transitioning, it was contagious. One visit to Planned Parenthood was all it took. They acted like they had the answer to my every problem even though they didn’t even know me from Adam or Eve. I started taking testosterone and it was like some monster took over my life. I was irritable. I wanted to hurt people. I hurt myself, instead, and ended up in the emergency room. I started to grow a beard. My voice changed into a squeak. I didn’t go out socially, anymore. I stopped taking testosterone 18 months later and this whole cycle stopped, but not one adult tied my personality changes to the testosterone in all that time. They just told me I had ‘internalized transphobia’. What a crock.
I had my breasts removed. I remember feeling awful when I looked down and saw the gashes on my chest. But I believed once I was a boy, I would have the self-confidence I had always craved. The drugs, the surgery – none of this was really making me a man. I was just kidding myself. I was living a lie. I was trying to pass as male but was scared to death every moment I would be found out, that my new genitalia was just a prosthetic. I considered surgery for a real one, but then I would have ended up with urinary problems and loss of all sexual feeling. And it still wouldn’t have been real, just a piece of my arm muscle relocated down south.
The trans community lied to me. They told me feeling uncomfortable in my own body was about transgenderism when it was just a normal part of growing up. They didn’t tell me the damage I was doing to myself was irreversible. They told me my family didn’t understand me so they were my family now, just like a cult. The trans influencers on YouTube looked really cool. They told me top surgery would bring me so much joy. So I was meeting all these attractive, confident transitioners online but felt lonelier than ever. They kept me from making real friends and finding other ways to cope with the feelings I was having. The path they laid out for me was really very confusing. My attraction to men didn’t go away, so what was I going to be – a gay trans guy? I was more confused than ever. I was in such a broken place. But the doctors and mental health professionals told my parents that, unless I were affirmed in transitioning and in finding my true ‘gender identity’, my ‘authentic self’, I would kill myself. I hear pushy professionals like that are starting to get sued for malpractice and for ruining young lives for their own profit. Good. It’s about time.
And when I started to question my transitioning, all my supposed friends became toxic and turned against me. Now that I’m detransitioning, they just call me a bigot. I see now they never did care about me. They only cared about burning up people like me to build their political movement. I wasn’t a person; I was a battleground. I’ve reached out to a couple of people I knew from those days, but they’ve shunned me entirely.
I’d like to have children, someday. I don’t know if that will be possible. I certainly won’t be breast-feeding them, that hope burned up in a medical waste incinerator. Breast implants make my clothes fit better. I might have reconstructive surgery, I don’t know. But what is better now is that I accept myself as myself. I am what I am. I found a community of detransitioners, and that’s helped.
Santa, I destroyed my life. I’m not going to tell you I’m a victim. I did this to myself, but I did have help. I got used by a lot of people for their own agendas – the activists, the social media influencers, the profiteers, all of them. They knew exactly what they were doing and they manipulated me every step of the way. Tell a psychologist you’re a tomboy and they say right back, ‘Oh, you’re transgender’ and put you on hormones the next day. It’s not right, telling children that right off the bat. It’s sick. People need to wake up. This whole communist political transgenderism trip is intended to tear society apart and it’s doing a good job of it.
Santa, I know you can’t give me my life or even my breasts back. But you can warn people political transgenderism is about the worst lump of coal they could ever wish on anybody.
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“Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shall be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee: and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” — Genesis 12:1-3
“Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.” — Isaiah 49:16
“…for he that touches you touches the apple [pupil] of His eye.” — Zechariah 2:8
“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran Pastor and anti-Nazi
In her book, The Hiding Place, Holocaust survivor Corrie ten Boom remembers:
“One day as Father and I were returning from our walk we found the Grote Markt cordoned off by a double ring of police and soldiers. A truck was parked in front of the fish mart; into the back were climbing men, women, and children, all wearing the yellow star…
“Father! Those poor people!” I cried.
“Those poor people,” Father echoed. But to my surprise I saw that he was looking at the solders now forming into ranks to march away. “I pity the poor Germans, Corrie. They have touched the apple of God’s eye.”
Corrie ten Boom and her family helped over 800 Jewish people escape the Nazi Holocaust. They harbored hundreds of Jews to protect them from arrest by Nazi authorities. Betrayed by a fellow Dutch citizen, the entire family was imprisoned for standing against evil.
Standing Against Evil
Singer-songwriter Sean Ono Lennon, son of Beatles founder John Lennon, unequivocally stood with Jews the first week in December 2022, condemning the massive spike in hate crimes directed at the community.
The December 7, 2022 United With Israel article stated, “Sean Ono Lennon, son of Beatles founder John Lennon and acclaimed artist Yoko Ono, posted clear statistics from the FBI showing the extent to which Jews are disproportionately targeted by hate crimes in the U.S. The statistics show that Jews are more than twice as likely to be targeted for hate crimes as Muslims, and close to three times more likely to be targeted than Blacks.”
Lennon continued, “A surprising number of people don’t even know that more hate crimes are committed against Jews than any other minority group. Racism in all forms is abhorrent and must be condemned. I don’t know if Ye truly understands how dangerous and evil his words were.”
Kanye (Ye) West
Lennon’s comments were directed at Kanye (Ye) West and Nick Fuentes, both of whom have uttered the most virulent and noxious anti-Semitic and Holocaust denying statements.
In 2016, Kanye was hospitalized for exhaustion, but was held under a 5150 72-hour psychiatric hold according to the Washington Post. (Questionable source, but still apparently valid.) In 2020, Kanye claimed his wife, Kim Kardashian West tried to have him committed.
The New York Post commented on West’s appearance on Alex Jones’ Info Wars program where West claimed he loved Hitler and hated Bibi Netanyahu. Jones said of the West interview, “I can’t bring myself to watch it again — I can’t stand to watch it.”
West was suspended from twitter by Elon Musk allegedly for posting a picture of the Star of David with a swastika inside it. He’s lost his partnership with Adidas and he and his wife have divorced.
Nick Fuentes, head of the Groypers, who I mentioned in a previous article, seems to be behind West’s anti-Semitic diatribes.
Nick Fuentes
Fuentes has made a number of racist and antisemitic comments under the guise of being provocative and ironic. On a livestream episode, Fuentes “jokingly” denied the Holocaust and compared Jews burnt in concentration camps to cookies in an oven.
On May 24, 2021, Fuentes participated in a debate on Alex Jones’ Info Wars with Robert Barnes, a man described as a “constitutional lawyer” who has legally defended both Jones and Kenosha’s Kyle Rittenhouse. During the debate, Fuentes made numerous antisemitic remarks, including, “I don’t see Jews as Europeans and I don’t see them as part of Western civilization, particularly because they are not Christians.”
Uh, Nick… Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew from the Tribe of Judah.
Silence in the Face of Evil
Obviously, this 24-year-old hasn’t a full grasp of American or world history. Jewish folks were here long before the Revolutionary War. Haym Salomon actually helped to finance the War for Independence. He served as the broker to Superintendent of Finance, Robert Morris, from 1781 to 1784. He immigrated to colonial New York in the mid-1770s, where he first served as a sutler to the Continental Army.
Read Simon Wiesenthal’s Sails of Hope: The Secret Mission of Christopher Columbus. Columbus knew that Queen Isabella’s ultimatum for the Jews to get out of Spain had run out. On board the ship that sailed for the West Indies were a very large number of Jewish folks. Many disembarked at various stops, but there’s a good chance many of them came to America.
So, where are the rest of the famous musicians and actors like Sean Lennon? Why aren’t they all speaking out? Where are the politicians who love to talk, but never do a thing to help their country? Where is the church, why aren’t they preaching to the congregations to stand against this evil? Where are the university and college leaders? Why aren’t they taking a stand against anti-Semitism to protect their Jewish students?
Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was so very right when he said, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
The Wife of Jehovah
The relationship of Israel as the wife of Jehovah is viewed throughout the Scriptures in various ways and facets. Essentially, this relationship can be broken down into six distinct stages which the relationship undergoes. Four of these stages are history. We are now living in the fifth stage of the relationship between Israel and God. The sixth stage is the future. That future holds the final and completed promises to Israel.
The book of Deuteronomy seems to be merely a repetition of what Moses had written earlier in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Deuteronomy actually means “repetition” or “a second time around.” But the entire format of the Book of Deuteronomy is that of both an ancient treaty and an ancient marriage contract. What Moses does in Deuteronomy is to take all the various facets of the three earlier books and present them in the form of an ancient marriage contract. In Deuteronomy, we find the marriage contract signed between Israel and God—where Israel becomes the wife of Jehovah.
Deuteronomy 5:1-3, 6:10-15, 7:6-11
The prophets always looked at this covenant relationship as a marriage contract, and one example is found in Ezekiel 16:8, the words of Ezekiel being the words describing the wedding night.
Israel may wander and stray, she may go against the statutes the Lord gave, but in the end there will be a greater remarriage and restored blessings. Ezekiel 16:60-63 and Isaiah 54:1-8.
Jeremiah 3:14 makes it clear. “Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion.”
The Lord loves His Wife, Israel.
The Eight Covenants
There are eight covenants in God’s Word. Two are conditional and six are unconditional. Of these eight covenants, five were made exclusively with Israel while the others were made with mankind in general. Only the Mosaic Covenant is conditional. The Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic and the New Covenant are unconditional. These are literal covenants and their contents must be interpreted literally as well, The covenants God made with Israel are eternal and are not in any way restricted or altered by time. These covenants being unconditional are totally dependent upon God for fulfillment. Therefore, their fulfillment can be expected. These covenants were made with a specific people…Israel! Ephesians 2:11-12 points out that Gentiles were considered strangers from the covenants.
Space disallows a thorough discussion of all eight covenants, but the unconditional Abrahamic Covenant is of great import. There are six different passages of Scripture that pertain to this Covenant. Genesis 12:1-3, Genesis 12:7, Genesis 13:14-17, Genesis 15:1-21, Genesis 17:1-21 and Genesis 22:15-18. And in the New Testament Book of Galatians Chapter 3, Paul states that the Abrahamic promises were made to Abraham and to his seed.
Note that the very first portion of the Abrahamic Covenant is Genesis 12:1-3 wherein our Creator states, “And I will bless them that bless thee: and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
So, anti-Semites beware. Throughout history, the Lord has kept his promises and those who have cursed Israel are cursed, those who bless her are blessed.
Hatred for Israel and Her People
I am a gentile, and I am a believer in Messiah Jesus. As such we who believe are called Christ’s bride, but we have never been called God’s wife. His wife is Israel. Why is she so hated and besmirched? Because it is she, God’s wife, who will call for Moshiach to come and save them from the armies of the evil one in the last days of the tribulation.
Lucifer, Satan, Beelzebub, whatever you call him, he knows what is in the Word, and from the beginning of his fall from grace, he has tried to destroy the Jews so that he could live and rule and reign on earth forever. But it won’t happen because our Creator’s promises are forever. In Genesis 15:5 the Lord said to Abram, “Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.”
Those who have hatred for Israel in their hearts, not only curse themselves according to God’s Word, but they are filled with demonic entities.
To the Jew first and also to the Greek appears three times in the New Testament and all three appear in the first two chapters of Romans.
Poking God’s Eye
Genesis 12:3: I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curseth thee.
Zechariah 2:8: …for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple (pupil) of His eye.
The first verse is a promise to Gentiles, all the nations of the world, on what we can expect from the Lord God based on our treatment of the Jewish people and the nation of Israel. What kind of blessings and curses has God reserved for us based on how we treat the Jewish people whom He loves?
The second verse is an ominous statement of warning to all who would stand actively or passively against Israel, whom He calls the “apple of His eye,” expressing His devotion, affection, and protectiveness towards Israel and the Jewish people.
The two verses are linked together and their commonality is God’s promised reaction
Hanukkah and Christmas
Christians observe December 25th as a day to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Our Jewish brethren also have a celebration during the same time period that commemorates God’s deliverance of them from a period of terrible oppression 165 years before the birth of Jesus. This year Hanukkah is from December 18th to 26th. Both are joyous Holy days.
This feast or celebration is called Hanukkah, a Hebrew word that means dedication. Accordingly, in the Gospel of John it is called “The Feast of Dedication” (John 10:22-23). And, it is also referred to as “The Feast of Lights.”
This Jewish festival was established in 165 B.C. to mark the rededication of the Temple after the Israelites, under the leadership of Judah Maccabee, toppled their enemy, the Syrian dictator Antiochus Epiphanes. When the Jews sought to relight the lampstand in the Temple during the rededication ceremony, they discovered only enough oil for one day. It would take eight days to make a new supply, but the people decided to kindle and burn up what they had anyway. According to legend, a miracle occurred, and the oil lasted for eight days.
Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth and we believe He is the light unto the world.
Saving God’s People
Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged by Hitler just days before liberation. His life was one of loving the Jewish people and battling the evil of Naziism.
One of Bonhoeffer’s most famous texts was his April 1933 essay, “The Church and the Jewish Question.” Addressing the challenges facing his church under Nazism, Bonhoeffer in this essay argued that National Socialism was an illegitimate form of government and hence had to be opposed on Christian grounds. He outlined three stages of this opposition. First, the church was called to question state injustice. Secondly, it had an obligation to help all victims of injustice, whether they were Christian or not. Finally, church might be called to “put a spoke in the wheel” to bring the machinery of injustice to a halt.
The good pastor was involved in smuggling Jews out of Germany and in the attempt to kill Hitler.
In February 1945, he was taken to Buchenwald and in April moved to the Flossenburg concentration camp. On April 9, 1945, he was hanged with other conspirators. His brother Klaus Bonhoeffer was also executed for resistance activities, as were his brothers-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi and Rüdiger Schleicher.
The Fuhrer had them hanged out of spite and hatred.
Corrie ten Boom and her entire family loved the Jewish people and set about to save them. Through the Dutch Resistance, the ten Boom family home became a safe haven for Jews and resistance fighters.
For two years the ten Booms housed, fed, and relocated Jews and others passing through, miraculously obtaining enough ration cards and other supplies despite the watchful eyes of the SS headquarters nearby. The resistance built a secret room with a sliding panel in Corrie’s bedroom.
On February 28, 1944, the Gestapo raided the ten Boom home. Six people living illegally in the house survived in the hiding place, but Corrie, her siblings, father, and nephews were arrested and transferred to Scheveningen. Her father died there, and her sister, Betsie, died at Ravensbrück.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Corrie ten Boom, both devout Christians, loved their Jewish brethren enough to risk their own lives for God’s people.
As Corrie said, “Lord Jesus, I offer myself for Your people. In any way. Any place. Any time.”
Conclusion
In Deuteronomy 32:10, Moses declared that all God’s people, could confidently ask God to keep them a reflection on God’s iris. The words of the Prophet Zachariah promise that those who hurt God’s people will pay, for God constantly keeps His people in the iris of His eye.
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Do the Palestinian-Arabs genuinely wish to establish a state for themselves? Or do they really wish to dismantle the state of the Jews?
To this day, I cannot understand why the Palestinian leadership did not accept the far-reaching and unprecedented proposal I offered them. My proposal included a solution to all outstanding issues: territorial compromise, security arrangements, Jerusalem and refugees – Former PM Ehud Olmert, Washington Post, July 17, 2009
Lamentably, the international debate on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and in particular the Israeli-Palestinian component thereof, has utterly lost its direction, swerving haphazardly off course into the realm of the politically correct, shrouded as it is, by a fog of malicious, mendacious myths.
Inevitably, this has had a corrosive effect on the discourse, suppressing historical truths while sustaining heinous untruths. Of course, the overarching fiction that casts its distortive shadow over much, if not all, of the discussion of the clash between Jew and Arab for control over the Holy Land is the fatally flawed notion of a separate state for Palestinian-Arabs.
Puzzling and persistent failure
Indeed, anyone still advocating the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River—despite decades of failed attempts—must confront a decidedly irksome question:
Why have the Palestinian-Arabs failed consistently and continuously to attain such a state, when many other national movements, with far less moral and material support, have succeeded–even when this involved casting off the rule of imperial powers far more powerful than tiny Israel?
Indeed, how can we account for the blatant failure of the Palestinians to meet the test of history? One should keep in mind that the Palestinians have enjoyed conditions far more benign than those experienced by almost any other movement of national freedom since WW-II. These include widespread international endorsement of their cause, unmitigated support of one of the two superpowers during the decades of the Cold War—the USSR, highly sympathetic coverage by the major media organizations, and over a decade of Israeli administrations, who have not only acknowledged (but at times even identified with) their declared national aspirations.
Challenging conventional wisdom?
However, despite all these advantages, the Palestinian-Arabs have failed to produce even a semblance of a stable, productive society. Indeed, quite the opposite is true. Well over a decade after having the benevolent Oslo Accords virtually thrust upon them by an unprecedentedly accommodative Israeli administration (whose entire political platform was indeed built on such accommodation), the Palestinian leadership has done nothing but provide a repressive and regressive interim regime that produced little but the pillage of the Palestinian people.
Neither is this dismal reality the result of a lack of adequate funds. Quite the opposite is true. The unprecedented scale of the Palestinian-Arabs’ failure is underscored by the remarkable – if little publicized fact – that in the post-Oslo years, the international community poured upward of five billion dollars into the Palestinian economy- making the Palestinian Authority then the highest per-capita recipient of development aid in the world!Thus, arguably, the putative Palestinian state has perhaps the unique—if dubious—distinction of attaining “failed state” status before its actual establishment.
Clearly then, there is room for the “heretical” postulation that the real underlying Palestinian-Arab desire is, in fact, not the establishment of a state. Indeed, perhaps the time has come to suggest that most of the prevailing conventional wisdom regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is totally unfounded–even misguided and misleading.
Two countervailing hypotheses
In principle, there are two countervailing hypotheses by which to account for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to prevailing conventional wisdom, the fuel of the conflict is the lack of Palestinian self-determination, and all the Palestinians aspire to, is to establish a state for themselves. There is however an alternative proposition, diametrically opposed to the former – and which in light of the deeds and declarations of the Palestinians themselves – appears the more plausible.
According to this alternative explanation, the fuel of the conflict is not the lack of Palestinian self-determination, but the existence of Jewish self-determination and as long as Jewish self-determination continues, so will the conflict. Moreover, according to the alternative explanation, the goal of the Palestinians is not to establish a state for themselves but to dismantle a state for others –the Jews.
The question which now must be addressed is: Which of these two alternative hypotheses has the greater explanatory power?
The answer seems to be unequivocally in favor of the latter – for it provides eminently plausible explanations for a range of events that the former is totally unable to account for.
For example:
It explains why every territorial proposal, which would have allowed the Palestinians to create a state of their own (from the 1947 partition plan, through Ehud Barak’s offer at Camp David in 2000, to Ehud Olmert’s far-reaching—some might say irresponsible—proposal in 2006), never satisfied them and why all were rejected by them.
It explains why only the total negation of Jewish independence appears acceptable to the Palestinians, as evidenced not only by their abovementioned rejection of any viable offer of a “two-state solution”, but also by much of Palestinian rhetoric and symbolism, which invariably portrays the whole the Land of Israel, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, as constituting part of Arab Palestine.
It explains why the Palestinians originally eschewed any claims for national sovereignty over the pre-1967 “West Bank” and Gaza—as evidenced by the explicit text of their original National Charter. Formulated in 1964, years before Israel had any presence in the “West Bank”, the Charter (in Article 24) explicitly refrains from any aspirations on the part of the Palestinians to “exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, [or] on the Gaza Strip… “—which they now claim as their historic homeland.
It also explains why the millions of Palestinians, the largest demographic group in Jordan, resign themselves to the non-Palestinian rule by a Hashemite Bedouin monarch, who belongs to the non-Palestinian minority in the land –clearly indicating that Palestinians are not averse to non-Palestinian rule, only to Jewish rule.
It explains not only why the Palestinian-Arabs rejected the far-reaching generosity of the 2000 Barak proposals, but also the violent manner in which they rejected it. For although these proposals did include a proviso insisting on “end of conflict“, they were unprecedented in the concessions offered towards making a Palestinian state a feasible prospect. However, the ferocity of the repudiation by the Palestinians seems to indicate that even these were far short of their real demands. After all, if they were only marginally inadequate, it would be reasonable to expect that the Palestinians would have preferred to negotiate the details of issues in contention, rather than launch such an extensive wave of fierce and destructive violence. This is a response that seems explicable if, and only if, “end of conflict” is an unacceptable concept for them.
It explains why the Palestinian-Arabs rejected the expansive—some might venture “excessive”—largesse of the 2006 proposal put forward by Ehud Olmert, addressing virtually all the Palestinian-Arabs’ demands—see here. Significantly, Olmert’s expression of frustration, astonishment, and puzzlement, which he conveyed in a lengthy Washington Post Op-Ed, starkly underline the inadequacy of the assumption that the Palestinian-Arabs genuinely wish to negotiate the establishment of their own state with Israel. He wrote: “To this day, I cannot understand why the Palestinian leadership did not accept the far-reaching and unprecedented proposal I offered them” and suggested “It would be worth exploring the reasons that the Palestinians rejected my offer…. ” Indeed, it would!!!
It explains why the Palestinian-Arabs stubbornly insist on the “right of return”, which would imply placing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians (and possibly even more), now living in Arab countries, under Israeli jurisdiction. This is a demand that really tears the mask off Palestinian intentions for it is a position hardly consistent with an alleged desire to be free of “oppressive” Israeli control… or with an equitable two-state solution.
By contrast, none of the above phenomena can be reconciled with the explanation propounded by the advocates of the conventional wisdom hypothesis.
Accordingly, one can but wonder on which of these hypotheses it would be prudent for Israel to base its future policies: The hypothesis which can account for all these phenomena; or the hypothesis which accounts for none of them…???
