With what absolution then do they preach death and destruction? Shouldn’t this administration find these false prophets enemies of the people? Do they not incite to riot and enlist their minions to support illegal activities that are detrimental to the peace of America? Have they not brought America more insecurity by confirming in the minds of those fearful of a clash of civilizations that indeed America is on a crusade to destroy Islam?
by Prof. William A. Cook
Israel’s Enemies Are Our Enemies… “But I say to you, love your enemies…”
Israel’s Fight Is Our Fight… “But I say…not to resist the evildoer…turn to him the other cheek.”
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”
(The bold bombast are the words of Christians United for Israel; the non-bold are the words of Christ from St Matthew’s Chapter 5).
The demand conveyed in the above box is plastered on top of the most non-Christian web site on the internet: CUFI, Christians United for Israel. Would that it would read: Christians United for Isolation of Israel, then it would offer a Christian message of a peaceful means to stop genocide in Palestine. The very thought that an organization could call itself Christian and demand that Christians support the wanton slaughter of children and mothers and fathers caught like animals in a cage and mercilessly shot to death borders on the actions of human madness. What ministers of god would dare such mendacity in Christ’s name? How abhorrent.
Nineteen US newspapers carried the CUFI full page ad on July 31 and August 1 supporting Israel as it invaded Gaza resulting in more than 2000 killed and 8300 wounded. By August 1, when the ad reappeared, 1458 had been killed. The 2000 figure is not a final figure as the fighting continued for two more days before the ceasefire. I was unaware of the ads before yesterday when a colleague mentioned that they had appeared in the Los Angeles Times. I’m glad I did not see them.
Today this harvest of death continues with the number dead now beyond 2200. And mercifully, since the Gazan people are deprived of weapons, only about 60 Israelis have been killed some by “friendly fire.” What a delightful phrase, eases the pain doesn’t it, an unintended death excusing in its gentle tone another dead because we kill each other.
It occurs to me that CUFI is not a Christian organization; it does not abide by the teachings of Christ; it is rather an Old Testament tribe that lives by ancient codes expressed in that document as “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
” Christ came to teach a new doctrine: “But I say to you not to resist the evildoer; on the contrary, if someone strike thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” And again, “For I say to you that unless your justice exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” This is not the g-d of the Old Testament, the g-od of war, as the book of Exodus announces; that g-d is Jehovah and he is the g-d of mindlessness. Christ tells the world this when he says, “Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill.”
I would suggest that this organization is a fraud being perpetrated on the innocent who rely on “self-proclaimed” ministers of the church, allegedly “Christian institutions,” to deceitfully support a nation that has undertaken genocide against the people of Gaza as the above statistics demonstrate. Moreover, both true Christians and non-Christians from multitudinous nations around the world have poured into the streets condemning the slaughter taking place in Gaza, a carnage supported by anti-Christian ministers of war as well as the government of the United States. I would go further. The wrapping of the flags of the United States and that of Israel implies that they advocate their beliefs for all Americans and all Christians. It is not so. That too is fraudulent.
Think of it: Christ went up the mountain to teach the crowds the Beatitudes and speaks to them a new parable.
“Once upon a time there was a man proclaiming his divinity to the Almighty, “I and the Father are one.” He spoke of twelve Beatitudes that are to be the light of the world, the very means of eternal life: he blessed the poor in spirit, the meek, those who mourn, those who seek justice, the merciful, the clean of heart, peacemakers, those who are persecuted, and those who are defiled in His name, for blessedness comes from living these truths.” Then one of his disciples spoke: “Master, how can these beatitudes be the path to heaven?” And He answered: “Thou sayest it.” That answer is clear enough, you believe Christ or you believe the mindless g-d of the Old Testament, a g-d that favors genocide, and greed and land theft.
We need only pay heed to Thomas Jefferson’s words to Dr. Benjamin Rush in his letter of April 21, 1803: “It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may … become his own.” Freedom of conscience cannot exist in a climate of fear or in a nation that dictates truth. For the Christian right to impose its beliefs on this nation by controlling the ballot box to ensure the election of radical “end time” believers, to impose their religious beliefs through legislation that all must accept, or to align themselves with groups like the neo-cons who desire a similar goal and would willingly subvert the rights of the people as stated in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights to attain it, can and will result in the erosion of the principles that ensure our freedom.
In that same letter to Rush, Jefferson noted the corruption of Jesus’ teachings as “doctrinized” by denominations, extolling instead Christ’s undiluted teachings: he taught “universal philanthropy, not only to kindred and friends, to neighbors and countrymen, but to all mankind, gathering into one family, under the bonds of love, charity, peace, common wants and common aids”(Italics mine). How different in concept this understanding of Christ’s teachings that provides tolerance of all as members of one family from the teachings of the Christian Zionists and right-wing Jewish Zionists who would purge a people from their homeland by superstitiously interpreting words that allow them to determine the fate of millions.
How brilliant does the wording of the Declaration seem now, “endowed by their creator with unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” a prescription guaranteed in the Bill of Rights that indelibly marks each and every human with the same rights to live in a free society unencumbered by the dominance of another’s infallible thoughts! Jefferson understood that religions are not tolerant or democratic; indeed, they are inherently neither, since ministers serve as intermediaries to the divine and become the conduit of doctrines and dogma that determine thought for the believer. It followed logically for Jefferson that church and state must be separate if all religions were to exist in the new country. America does not rest on Christian principles; it exists, as all democracies must, in tolerance of Christian beliefs as it exists in tolerance of all religious beliefs precisely because it was not founded on beliefs expounded by one religion. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine, the principal exponents of the foundational concepts upon which this country rests, were Deists who accepted the genuine precepts of Jesus, not those that have evolved in the various denominations over the course of centuries. Love, charity, and compassion define Christ’s precepts; love of all, charity toward all, compassion for all, that all may live in peace (Cook, “Ministers of War: Criminals of the Cloth,” 2003).
Strange how 19 newspapers in the US have printed this advertisement, including the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, and the Denver Post, to bring Americans and Christians together in support of a holocaust against a defenseless foe. Not only do they willingly accept money to declare the value of genocide but they acknowledge that America willingly declares its allegiance to the state that inflicts the destruction. While it is true that all of our Congress voted a Resolution supporting Israel’s war, voted it without dissent, it seems strange behavior for deliberative bodies to take unless there is another explanation for it. And indeed there is.
Consider the advertisement as blatant hate speech isolating a specific people for destruction regardless of the defenselessness of their position. It is not a war; it is slaughter. It is not an advertisement declaring CUFI’s support for Israel; it is an ad cognoscente of events happening right now, calling on the faithful to support the genocidal aggression against Palestinians in Gaza. The US does not have laws governing hate speech as many western nations do, unless one turns to a specific ruling by the Supreme Court.
“It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken,” Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books last month, “when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack.”
Waldron was reviewing “Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment” by Anthony Lewis, the former New York Times columnist. Lewis has been critical of attempts to use the law to limit hate speech.
But even Lewis, a liberal, wrote in his book that he was inclined to relax some of the most stringent First Amendment protections “in an age when words have inspired acts of mass murder and terrorism.” In particular, he called for a re-examination of the Supreme Court’s insistence that there is only one justification for making incitement a criminal offense: the likelihood of imminent violence.”
Ironically, this issue of imminent violence came to the fore as Netanyahu used the kidnapping of three teens to condemn Hamas for the killings knowing that he had no evidence for the claim and knowing that the teens had been shot almost immediately on abduction yet did not inform the parents or the public of this fact. Violence ensued as IDF troops overran Gaza and youths in Israel kidnapped and burned with gasoline a Palestinian boy. The question could be asked of this ad, does it incite to support of violence since it supports the IDF’s behavior in Gaza.
“The imminence requirement sets a high hurdle. Mere advocacy of violence, terrorism or the overthrow of the government is not enough; the words must be meant to, and be likely to, produce violence or lawlessness right away. A fiery speech urging an angry racist mob immediately to assault a black man in its midst probably qualifies as incitement under the First Amendment. A magazine article – or any publication – aimed at stirring up racial hatred surely does not.
Lewis wrote that there is “genuinely dangerous” speech that does not meet the imminence requirement. “I think we should be able to punish speech that urges terrorist violence to an audience, some of whose members are ready to act on the urging,” Lewis wrote. “That is imminence enough” (above quotes from “Hate speech or Free speech” by Adam Liptsk, NYT, 6-11/08)
Some might find that a call from ministers to urgently act to ensure God’s word relative to the support of Israel so that Armageddon might occur a call that could incite violence. Does material support during an incursion that is by its nature violent make that complicit support of the violence and does that condemn the CUFI for advertising such a document? Would an advertisement paid for by a Muslim organization calling for support against Israel be considered anti-Semitic and filled with hate speech?
Finally if we consider the accusations made by CUFI against Hamas and produce an alternative Israeli statement that alleges the same thing, would the advertisement be considered deliberately deceitful and highly questionable if proffered by true Christians?
Here are statements made in the CUFI advertisement:
Hamas seeks to destroy Israel… “If need be, we shall take the country by force. If Palestine proves too small—her frontiers will have to be extended” (Ben Gurion, Appendix I Vc, Rhodes House Archives, 1946).
And today:
Hamas rejects negotiations with Israel… “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank, he told reporters last week in remarks that largely have been overlooked.
“There cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan,” he said July 11 at a press conference. But if Israel doesn’t relinquish security control, Palestinians cannot establish a state. The alternative, then, would be a single state in which Palestinians are residents but not full citizens.
“That sentence, quite simply, spells the end to the notion of Netanyahu consenting to the establishment of a Palestinian state,” summed up Times of Israel editor David Horovitz, whom Ha’aretz described as a Netanyahu supporter (Huffington Post, 7/18/2014).
Quite obviously what CUFI claims Hamas wants, the destruction of Israel, can be said about Israel from the day of its inception to the present, there will be no sharing of the land of Palestine. Why does CUFI hide the truth from its laity?
Hamas wants to kill all Jews… “The Jews are a nation. The Land of Israel belongs to the People of Israel. The Jewish State will be established…” (Ben Gurion, Rhodes House Archives, Catling collection).
‘We must expel Arabs and take their place’: Institute for Palestine Studies publishes 1937 Ben-Gurion letter advocating the expulsion of Palestinians” (Adam Horowitz on March 28, 2012 192)
With what absolution then do they preach death and destruction? Shouldn’t this administration find these false prophets enemies of the people? Do they not incite to riot and enlist their minions to support illegal activities that are detrimental to the peace of America? Have they not brought America more insecurity by confirming in the minds of those fearful of a clash of civilizations that indeed America is on a crusade to destroy Islam?