From Nazis to Netanyahu: How did things go so terribly wrong?
"Love your hat!" I said to the grey-bearded Hasidic rabbi next to me as
we stood in front of the White House the other day. We were both
preparing to march up New York Avenue to the DC Convention Center where
members of the American Israel Public Affairs Action
Committee (AIPAC) were happily doing brunch and getting ready to listen
to their hero Bibi Netanyahu spew out his favorite brand of nationalism
and hate. https://mondoweiss.net/2019/04/why-glad-netanyahu/
"My father died in a Nazi concentration camp," said the old rabbi, "and
we Jews all vowed 'never again'. And yet here we are, 75 years later,
and now it is Zionists instead of Nazis who are running concentration
camps." The old rabbi sighed. "And what also gives me big problems today," he continued, "
is that when people on the street see me in my traditional Hasidic
garments, they frown and avoid me because they think that I myself
support Zionist atrocities -- but the Zionists, the real troublemakers,
are all wearing suits and trying to fit in. And the irony of this is
that these Zionists don't even represent Judaism at all."
Yep, the old rabbi nailed it. Nowadays Zionists are rabidly claiming
to be Jews -- but only after having disdainfully discarded Moses, the
Ten Commandments and a goodly chunk of the Torah. That's totally
absurd. And yet Hasidic Jews, not Zionists, are paying the price for
haters like Netanyahu and Trump. And Jews from Poway to Pittsburgh are
paying a terrible price too. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-poway-synagogue-shooting-20190427-story.html
To paraphrase Tupac, "The hate that Zionists give screws up real Jews." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roR6h03kw7I
Netanyahu wears thousand-dollar designer suits while Gaza children wear
rags. Netanyahu supports the Saudis, who are slowly turning Yemen into
Auschwitz. Netanyahu supports American fascism which in turn supports
all kinds of murder both at home and abroad. Ten Commandments? The
Torah? Mere propaganda tools. https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-admits-supplying-saudis-with-white-phosphorus-munitions/220553/
And America's so-called Christians aren't doing much better at
representing Jesus either. "Sanctuary Cities." OMG, that's what
America's current shamelessly un-Christian
regime is now calling all those miserable concentration camps for
kidnapped babies which now fester away at our southern border like open
sores. That's
just like, back in the day, when Nazis declared that Theresienstadt,
their fake "Model Town" concentration camp for Jewish artists and
musicians, was a "cultural center" -- just before sending these same
talented Jews off to the ovens, playing their violins as they went. https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/donald-trump-civil-war-in-yemen-libya-forgotten-wars/
Recently I joined some Palestinian genocide survivors, some actually-moral Americans
and a bunch of Hasidic Jews as we met near the White House, marched up New
York Avenue and picketed AIPAC's annual convention -- filled with Zionists who have been
influencing our federal elections ever since before Eisenhower and Johnson.
And please don't try to accuse me of anti-Semitism either. As the old
rabbi pointed out, real Jews try to obey the Ten Commandments. Real
Jews try to seek
justice. And real Jews don't run concentration camps like Gaza -- just
like real Christians don't run concentration camps like the one in
Tomillo, Texas.
"Over the centuries," the Hasidic rabbi said, " Anti-Semitism has
caused much bloodshed and right-thinking people recognize how tragic it
is. But the term is often used incorrectly today -- abused to promote
people's agendas. Zionism isn't Judaism. It's nationalism." And the
absolutely worst sort of nationalism too. Colonialism, power grabs, brutality, really bad
stuff. Not religious at all. https://mondoweiss.net/2019/04/approached-resolution-settlements/
"Encouraging the conflation of Zionism with Judaism also encourages
hatred toward the innocent -- and the result is that real Jews end up
being the target of anger over actions perpetrated by Zionists,
supposedly in the name of Jews." That's so unjust. For 75 years now,
Zionists have been violently stirring up hatred for Palestinian
Christians and Muslims. The result? Zionist "settlers" feel free to
murder and plunder at will. And after 75 years of Zionists trumpeting hate speech, the whole Middle East is now in flames --
and domestic terrorists also run wild in the United States. The hate
that Zionists give screws up all of us.
"And this is why we are marching here today." Go, you! Justice is always a good thing.
"But, Jane, why are you being so especially hard on the Zionists," you
might ask. No. It's not just them that I'm being hard on. I also
resent all those un-Christians in Europe and America who pretend to
worship Jesus and yet
murder and torture others in Jesus' name. Or those un-Muslim Saudis who
finance ISIS and fire-bomb babies in Yemen. Mohammad (PBUH) would
never approve of that. So why should I give un-Jews a pass just because
they brutally colonized Jerusalem? Obviously I
don't.
How to fix this problem? The problem of false propaganda turning
religions into tools to gain power and greed? Easy. Demagogues and
power-hungry Calf-worshiping blasphemers need to reassess both their methods and their goals. When
a group's goal is to dominate the world and make everyone else suffer,
they really do need to stop calling themselves "religious". https://www.salon.com/2019/04/21/reporter-sharmine-narwani-on-the-secret-history-of-americas-defeat-in-syria/
The real goal of truly religious people is to be kind, loving,
compassionate and helpful. But Zionists and
un-Jews, just like their counterparts the un-Christians and un-Muslims,
simply aren't any fun.
To quote Gloria Steinem, "Whenever one person stands up and says:
'Wait a minute. This is wrong,' it helps other people do the same." I
stood up with the Hasidic Jews and the Palestinians on that march -- and
had fun doing it too. Plus it's gonna be really hard to accuse these
Hasidic Jews, marching in full regalia down New York Avenue, of being
anti-Semitic or even self-hating -- but I imagine that Netanyahu and
AIPAC will find some way to do it anyway. But the friendly grey-bearded
Hasidic rabbi I marched next to sure didn't look like an anti-Semitic
self-hating Jew to me.
So. If our leaders are liars, cheats, torturers and bullies, then it's time for us all to stand up and have our objections counted -- or else go down with their sinking ship.
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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world. And while you're at it, please buy my books. https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM
