Obama and Kerry Were not the First

 

President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry and the fourteen collaborators of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in the now infamous UNSRC 2334 were not those things which have murdered any hope in peace between the Arabs and Jews nor the Palestinians and Israelis. This was done by the Arab League in November 1947; the founding of the PLO initiated by the Arab League with great assistance from the KGB at their Cairo summit on January 13–16 followed by meetings in Moscow forming their Charter calling for the destruction of Israel formally declaring the PLO on June 2, 1964; the Khartoum Conference and the Three No’s, no peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel; other steps through the years even unto each month, each week, often every hour of every day; and the refusal of Arafat and Abbas to negotiate demanding all or nothing; in the end they will have their wish, nothing. What Secretary of State Kerry and President Obama have done is merely write the opening stanza for the closing chapter on a very long story stretching back beyond written history and kept by the wolds of mouths in careful retellings until finally formalized in the writings of Torah and the Bible.

 

It was once the book which drove many including Egyptologists and Biblical archeologists to find ancient places which were unearthed and celebrated. Eventually the science is for science and should never be used to corroborate the fictitious writing in the Old Testament but if used properly will refute that old book of cautionary tales and fictitious tales more akin to Aesop than any formal study of real history. Every reputable archeologist would walk from digs in Israel, particularly Jerusalem, Hevron, Shechem, Jericho or any of the other Biblical cities and towns as if one found objects dating to and verifying any writings from the ancient Jewish texts was immediately cast as a Bibliologist and cast from the ranks of virtually every righteous and honorable archeological society and organization. Thus there have been credited archeology disproving Biblical records and discredited archeology which concurred with the biblical record, how absolutely predictable in our current age of science as a deity and religion as a blend of superstition mixed with mumbo-jumbo and archaic rituals all used to control the masses which now are under the thumb of the new false gods, the bureaucrats, politicians and their elitist masters. Times change but society little does.

 

Like many things when it comes to the Bible, Israel, religion and the Jews in particular, archeology too has its third rail, and the Bible is one such rail holding some of the highest voltages. The same can be said for modern politics. It has an irresistible allure which draws in those it will ensnare and draw down, even the mightiest fail and have missteps when coming abut the ancient promises, warnings and powers defined by its history and defined in deeds and legacy. The greatest of these admonitions, warnings, and protestations are the ones pertaining to the Promised Lands and particularly Jerusalem. The oft quoted lines derive from Zechariah Chapter 12 and read:

1) The prophecy of the word of the Lord concerning Israel: Says the Lord, Who stretches out the heavens and founds the earth and forms the spirit of man within him:
2) Behold! I am making Jerusalem a cup of weakness for all the peoples around, and also on Judah, [that he] shall be in the siege against Jerusalem.
3) And it shall come to pass on that day that I will make Jerusalem a stone of burden for all peoples; all who bear it shall be gashed, and all the nations of the earth shall gather about it.
4) On that day, says the Lord, I will smite every horse with bewilderment, and its rider with madness. And upon the house of Judah I will open My eyes, and all the horses of the peoples I will smite with blindness.
5) And the princes of Judah shall say to themselves, “The inhabitants of Jerusalem were my strength through the Lord of Hosts, their God.”
6) On that day I will make the princes of Judah as a fiery stove among wood, and as a brand of fire among sheaves. And they shall consume on the right and on the left all the nations round about, and Jerusalem shall still stay in its place in Jerusalem.
7) And the Lord shall first save the tents of Judah, so that the boasting of the house of David and the boasting of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall not increase over Judah.
8) On that day the Lord shall protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the weakest of them shall be, on that day, like David. And the house of David shall be like angels, like the angel of the Lord before them.
9) And it shall come to pass on that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come upon Jerusalem.
10) And I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplications. And they shall look to me because of those who have been thrust through [with swords], and they shall mourn over it as one mourns over an only son and shall be in bitterness, therefore, as one is embittered over a firstborn son.
11) On that day there shall be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the Valley of Megiddon.
12) And the land shall mourn, every family apart: The family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart.
13) The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of the Shimeites apart, and their wives apart.
14) All the remaining families-every family apart, and their wives apart.

 

Israel Through the Ages Joshua Enters to the Twelve Tribes

 

Israel Through the Ages King David and Solomon plus Hasmonean Maccabees

 

Israel Through the Ages
United Nations Proposed and Arab Rejected
Partition and Israel as Promised by International Treaty
Israel on Morning of May 15 Before War of Annihilation

 

The only way such a warning could be ignored was by claiming that the Bible, despite any and all evidences, is a storybook which contains moralistic stories embedded within a story of a mythical history which was just as fanciful as the Arthurian Legend, the gods of ancient Greece and Rome, the ancient holy books from Indian legends (which may also contain truths which modern science soaked culture refuses to accept), Chinese ancestral books describing the early Dynasties, Egyptian pictographs throughout the Egyptian ancient sites and numerous other histories from ancient peoples throughout the world on every continent and even every island group. No amount of archeological verification corroborating the Jewish Bible and its telling of history will change the “open” minds of the scientific community as such a change of mind, more of a change of heart, would shake many of their most precious held tenets with which they filter all incoming information. If those in power would accept the Biblical realities and truths it would need to cause a change in policies in favor of the Jewish claims to the land of Israel, even the greater areas which is defined as the tribal lands for the Twelve Tribes (see map below). Even if they would accept a smaller Israel as defined by the lands defined by the San Remo Conference and the Churchill White Paper with the caveats for respecting religious, social and financial, but with an exception of political rights such as only allowed very limited self-rule but not necessarily allowed the vote which can be legally restricted by the Jewish State under these agreements, then the world, including the United Nations (UN) due to their obligations under Article 80 of the UN Charter, would have to accept the Jordan River as the Israeli eastern border with a line continuing down to Eilat on the Red Sea and drop any claims of necessity for another Arab State within the borders of Israel. The world would need accept that during the Six Day War in June of 1967 liberated Judea and Samaria and that in 1948 the vast majority of the Arabs who became refugees left on their own volition responding to the Mufti of Jerusalem and the commanding generals of the combined Arab armies massed against the nascent state of Israel who promised a quick war which would annihilate every last Jew and they would return and share in the spoils of Jewish wealth and have been kept in suspension, they and their descendants, an arrangement making them different with special magical claims which would span all of time and space which are denied every other refugee throughout history, simply to be a political bludgeon to use to destroy Israel, the true indigenous people. We in Israel do not expect the world to alter their position and rather mostly to reach ever greater extremes of anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism and especially anti-Israelism, though President Trump may prove a relief from this trend it is also feared that relief will be all too temporary which is evidenced by the rising anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, anti-Israelism and growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanction Movement on college campuses across the United States, until the prophecies such as the one above become yet one more chapter in history proving Hashem and the absolute power and validity of every single last one of the promises Hashem gave to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses.

 

The list of predecessors is a long, and some might say who’s who, of others who believed they had squashed the dream of Israel and the Jewish People. Just to name a few, there were the Egyptians, the Babylonians, and the Persians, Alexander the Great, the Polemic Greeks, the Assyrian Greeks, and the Romans. After the Romans the world thought they had finished the Jews and they were to be lost to history but they refused to disappear. The persecutions continued with pogroms, inquisitions, crusades, and the Holocaust. Israel was already in the works as after World War I as a part of the decolonization by the Europeans returning lands to the presumed aboriginal people. They ran into a problem across much of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as the aboriginal people were gone, destroyed. The Egyptians, Berbers, the Babylonians, and tribe after tribe except for one tiny strip of line along the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. The Jews were still around and so the British started something and the League of Nations adopted their initial moves and verified the reestablishment of the state of Israel and the Jews began returning home. The British got cold feet and did everything in their power to prevent the finalization of the Jewish state but after World War II there was a moral imperative to finally get out of the way. Finally, after their longest exile the Jews had their homeland again. There are some who believe that their claims from fourteen-hundred years ago as the last conquerors that they were there before the Jews because the Jews only got there in 1948. These people also believe that history only exists once they have conquered some lands and there was never any history before them. How cute is that? There have been Jews in Jerusalem and Israel constantly for almost three thousand years. Those Jews remained through thick and thin remaining despite everything that threatened them. Whenever Jerusalem changed hands between conquerors, the Jews were murdered right along with the conquered. When it changed hands again, more of the same. For three thousand years and they refused to leave and refused to be eliminated and now some from half that time think they will push the Jews off.

 

There are only two things that can remove the Jews from Israel, all of Israel. The one guaranteed power is Hashem except he promised this return would be forever and that settles that. The other are the Jews themselves and never will all of us go and the rest would not go against Hashem, any others are not really Jewish or when they discover they actually are, will return as fast and as permanently as they are able. People ask why we had not attempted to return before we did. Truth be told, many did try and getting to the Promised Land when you are stuck thousands of miles away and must walk and the peoples inbetween you and your goal desire to kill you on sight, well, it makes things a bit difficult. Then others faced countries which refused to give the Jews rights but also refused to allow them to leave under pain of death. Those were our love/hate friends of a moment. The highs and the lows were countless. The contribution of Jews in philosophy and other sciences throughout the ages in every land was beyond imagination from a people so few in numbers. One would think that a people who were learned and worked diligently would have been treasured, we were not. No matter our accomplishments, we were the ones blamed for every failure. The Czar, the Kaiser, the Kings, Queens, Princes, Barons, Dukes and Sultans all found faults with their Jews at every turn. Despite this we survived and finally Hashem is bringing us home and here we are remaining, period. We are home and should anyone care to visit you will see a multi-ethnic society celebrating life and sharing joy wherever we can find it. We celebrate life every day and despite an enemy claiming their love of death is more powerful than our love for life, we know that life wins over death as long as life never loses hope. Our love of life has helped us survive until now and it will lead us into a future as bright as our best of times with one exception, our best remains ahead as we have always held as our main belief. We celebrate life and pass that love to the next generation as that is central to Judaism, and central for Israel.

 

We need to address a few things from Secretary of state Kerry stated as facts which were direct lies or misuse of statistics through selective or creative definitions. His biggest lie was that UNSC Res. 2334 was balanced. The resolution which demands Israel deconstruct “settlements” and basically remove all impediments that he and President Obama feel are impediments on the ground against asking the Palestinians to tone down their anti-Israel rhetoric and no longer glorify terrorism is as balanced as a see-saw with a duck on one side and a ton of bricks on the other and claiming the duck was given a balanced opportunity to keep its feet on the ground. Kerry lied that Israel has built settlements as there has not been any additional housing placed by Israel beyond the Green Line. The only structures Israel has built were replacements for houses destroyed. Kerry and Obama define increased settlement activity is any increase in population. Under this definition if a Jewish family has a child they must leave and return west of the Green Line because they have produced a new “settler” with that child. The fact is that there are numerous two and even three generations of families residing in single homes as Israel has refused to add housing in any sufficient rate to accommodate the growth of the population. Perhaps it is that the United States and Europe cannot understand a nation whose population produces more children than the absolute minimum to maintain population or not meet that number. Kerry said that they were supporting a solution when the parties were ready by redefining the borders as basing them on the green Line and that the Saudi Initiative be the base which he did not address the little point that the Saudi Initiative also includes the return of the Arab refugees into Israel, not the Palestinian state but into Israel making for a vast Arab majority for the Israeli population which would vote the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea at the following election. Kerry restated in closing the need to recognize and acknowledgement of the rights of the Palestinian refugees. He stated that the solution would be supported financially and implied that the absolute integrity of Israel resulting from that resettlement. His wording was as vague as one could expect. He stressed joint operations between Israel and their Arab neighbors and it gave us an idea, perhaps he had been smoking a lot of those joints while drafting that speech, a speech as balanced as UNSC Res. 2334 and all the resolutions approved over the years by the General Assembly. I had to be forced to listen to the entire speech and will forever regret relenting and not turning his droning off.

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

Imagine the Return to a Revolutionary Ideal

 

Once upon a time there was the Black Robe Regiment which was the name given by the British to the Colonial Preachers who supported American independence. Not only did they preach independence, they very often were officers in the militias against the Red Coats. The British did all they could to murder these preachers and many gave their lives for the Revolution but the danger did not curtail the Black Robe Regiment preachers who refused to be cowed and were one of the main inspirations of the American revolution. Their sermons inspired and often their brash and brave actions kept the Revolution alive and brought a number of victories against the odds with their bravery and words motivating their fellow congregants often at the most crucial of moments. The United States owes much of the founding in the fighting and the religious basis of the Founding Fathers and the state legislators whose input and approvals were required in the formation of both the federation of America and then the Constitution which was the foundation for the United States of America. There is a possibility that the Revolution could have failed without the local inspiration and organization which was often centered around the churches and their Black Robe Regiment preachers.

 

Black Robe Regiment

 

All that changed in 1954 at the behest of Texas Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson’s proposed legislation to amend the tax codes affecting houses of worship such as churches, synagogues, mosques, or temples and other nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) tax exemptions. The amended tax code limited the freedom of speech by members of organizations and entities who had tax exempt status under 501(c)(3) regulations making any political speech such as supporting a candidate, party or other specified political speech. The amendment to the tax codes was named for its presenter and is called the Johnson Amendment. Particularly prohibited was conducting political campaign activities to intervene in elections to public office or other sermonizing which may be perceived as backing a candidate or party. The language was vague and unspecific enough that many clergy were silenced from mentioning even certain Bible passages near election times as they might be construed as taking sides on a campaign issue and by doing so backing a particular candidate or party. Such brought to an end political preaching from the pulpit, at least in theory as some such still exists but as long as the parishioners are singing the same tune, nobody complains and such activity continues. This was specifically used to target and silence clergy from endorsing candidates. Over time this embargo on political speech became partisan in nature in too many locations as a ban against conservative politicking while backing leftist causes or progressive Democrat candidates. Still, care was taken to never mention any names and instead to often mimic campaign slogans working them into sermons or choosing verses carefully for recitation which would appear to back one candidate’s positions or damn the opposing candidate. Still, clergy still need be far more reserved and careful and a far cry from the history of clergy, especially when one remembers the Black Robe Regiment.

 

Texas Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson

 

Should Donald Trump as president keep his word and successfully repeal the Johnson Amendment thus freeing certain tax exempt institutions and their personnel from conducting any political activities, especially campaigning or endorsing candidates, imagine the consequences. We would witness the liberation of the clergy and the resultant rebirth potentially of a new Black Robe regiment preaching and supporting political positions more aligned with their religious beliefs. There need be no great fears from secularists as they won’t be in houses of worship forced to hear any sermonizing, especially political sermonizing. Rescinding this regulation, expunging it from the tax code, would be a strike for freedom of speech. Placing a political muzzle on the clergy and threatening their tax exempt status was a bad idea from the start, one might even say criminal. But then Lyndon Baines Johnson was not exactly known for tact or freedom of expression for anybody disagreeing with his views. He was better known for strong-arming political rivals by any and all means at his disposal. This was most evident during his time as President which also served to allow his passing every piece of legislation which became the backbone of his “Great Society” and a remaking of the social safety net and the start of an increased welfare system. Some have blamed this for many societal problems being faced by American society currently. Just maybe a little moralizing before Election Day voting would serve as a positive influence. Just Maybe.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The World is What We Make It!

 

Our world is at a threshold and a divergence and at this time nobody appears to be driving. Islam desires to tame the developed world and slam it forward to the seventh century which will result in starvation for the majority of the world. Meanwhile the developed world is humming along ignoring every warning sign concentrating on more glitter, better slogans, merchandising, and every distraction they can find to avoid addressing anything real. The world now has a good idea of what the future holds if the United States withdraws within the hard shell of her borders and decides isolationism is preferable to dealing with the problems in Europe and especially in the quicksand of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). President Obama claimed the world was messed up because of the meddling of the United States. He saw the United States as the source of the problems as the United States was everywhere where there were problems. Perhaps that was because the United States was attempting to deliver the solutions, not causing them. If what President elect Trump stated during the campaign, we can expect him to keep things close to the vest, which means, unless it becomes unbearable, we can expect the United States to expend all their resources to repair and jumpstart their economy. One hope is that a President Trump Administration chooses as their economic advisors people who are intelligent enough and of the correct preference so as to not start a trade war with tariffs as threatened in speeches and they keep the promise to avoid at all cost anything resembling in the slightest of means Keynesian economics, which was developed by the British economist John Maynard Keynes during the 1930s in an attempt to understand the Great Depression. President Obama used it with his repeated stimulus programs as had President Bush before him and further was behind their Quantitative Easing (QE) where they electronically invented funds they pumped into the economy to prop-up the stock markets. The thing that makes for hope is that President elect Donald Trump promised change and drastic change at that and with that there is hope that the United States will redirect itself in a more hopeful direction.

 

The problem is the world may not want to wait until January 20, 2017 to start and seek a new direction and move forward on that path. There are leaders in Europe who have made humane decisions without considering the consequences of those actions. They took in refugees in numbers without any vetting or other considerations and then attempted to cover-up the resulting waves of violence and sexual assaults including a massive wave across German cities at train and other transportation and assembly points on New Year’s Eve. France, England, Sweden and other European countries have had similar problems and similarly covered them up even when it was general knowledge that native girls were all subject to being abused regularly by the new immigrants. This is the divergence and unless it is spoken of and identified it cannot be opposed and steps taken to ameliorate the situation. There need be alternatives to the leadership who when presented with their mistakes decided to double down. They were looking at a demographic challenge of an aging population and negative population growth and rather than alarm the public and challenge the people and alter their habits through tax incentives to have children, something lacking in most European nations as they practice take all the funds and then dole it back to the public sparingly for little items such as housing, transportations, food etc. The Europeans have spent a long history attempting to perfect socialist engineering and government programmed social engineering. They have failed but refuse to admit their errors because their lives, the elites, have it pretty good deciding how the little people live and they keep the little people diverted, fat and happy, as the saying goes. The problem is their social engineering forgot to plan for a future which had been guaranteed by that other controlling factor of European history, religion.

 

 

The governments refused to share the people and insisted on total control without sharing and they targeted religion for extinction. They succeeded and religion died, and with it the future of Christian Europe. Now Europe will face a different future, the one it had fought for fourteen-hundred years and now are handing their continent over on a pewter platter, they cannot afford silver. Their leaders have surrendered and hardly appear to care as long as they get to age without a care and remaining fat and comfortable. One can only imagine what guarantee of a retirement resort and other guarantees from the coming masters of the new Europe, the Mullahs’ Europe. The people of Europe have been conditioned to being a kept people and they can only hope that they are not challenged to convert or die as the Quran demands the Islamic conquering armies to demand soon after conquest, and that is what is coming under the current European leadership with a few choice exceptions. The lucky nations know who they are and have choice leaders they should treasure and support as they may have saved some of European culture. The best way to support these leaders is take in any fleeing European Christians and start having children. If Europe is to survive, it needs to reverse the population decline when it is all said and done. Perhaps there is a core of Europe which can survive and even a chance that the whole of Europe can revive its culture but first the people, particularly the youth, need to choose life, particularly new life, children, many children and the first step to reaching this new utopia is revamping governance and returning the means to choose the life they desire to the people and allow them to keep their hard earned money and not dole it out as government chooses.

 

The next decade will show what direction the world is heading towards. The choices are stark as they are troubling with only a slightly better than even chance that Western civilization, as we currently know it, will survive. Currently the world is hurtling towards another great conflagration and the possibility that it will result in nuclear attacks is far too high for comfort. The genie might be put back in the bottle but recent events simply make that a difficult path which is strewn with obstacles. Still, principles and a strong base of belief in the freedoms and core beliefs upon which western civilization was and need be based must become a central part of life and return as the basis. This does not mean that everybody must return to being church or synagogue goers but the moral basis and the need for a future which must include children is and must be a necessity. The choice belongs to the youth more than the elitist leaders who have had their time and now need support families even if such takes from them their control of society, the control they may have misused with great danger for their peoples. There is always hope, always.

 

Beyond the Cusp