Every four years, the world waits with great anticipation for the start of the next Olympic Games. Meanwhile, another world game has been going on for almost two millennia. It all started with the traditional attitude of the Church toward Jews as the "killers of the Saviour" which provided a pretext for traditional anti-Semitism in Europe and America. However, the true reason for anti-Semitism has always been a financial one. Even the early Christians, in spite of persecution by the Romans, wanted to disassociate themselves from their Jewishness mainly in order to avoid paying the humiliating additional tax that the Romans imposed on Jews after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.
Later, any local king, baron, knight or abbot could kill, rob and displace Jews without fear of any retribution and with feeling of moral superiority promoted by the Church. Many royals borrowed heavily from the Jews in the past in order to maintain their lavish lifestyle or conduct wars. In return, existence under royal protection was offered to Jews, but often the debt was annulled and Jewish communities were forced to leave their homes.
England expelled Jews long before the Inquisition. In the beginning of the 14th century, the king of France, Philippe Le Bel, cancelled his debt to the Jews. The expulsions of Jews all over Europe were often accompanied by confiscation of their properties as well. The Church found this enterprise quite profitable during the time of the Inquisition.
At least in the middle ages Jews were allowed to leave and face danger in foreign lands! The Nazis and their willing 'dogs' in many countries were not satisfied by just making themselves rich with confiscated Jewish properties; they needed Jewish blood!
During the 1930s the United State congress unleashed anti-Communist propaganda, which coincided with the governmental 'tolerance' toward the rise of anti-Semitism and racism. Fascist and racist organizations like the KKK flourished! Jews were branded as war-mongers for their anti-Fascist position and were scared of governmental and mob reprisal. The US denied shelter to Jewish refugees from Europe, even to those who had entry visas. At the same time, the trade with fascist Germany and Italy thrived and goods from American steel to IBM computers were sold to "defenders against Communism". Morality and decency were discarded and replaced by the corporate bottom line!
Since the birth of the modern Zionist movement, a new game has been invented: "It is all about money (actually oil), stupid!" The British government promised support for the creation of the Jewish state in Palestine during the WW1. In 1922, almost immediately after the League of Nations gave control over the Palestinian mandate to Britain, in order to facilitate the creation of the Jewish state, 77% of Jewish land was ceded to Muslims in exchange for the control of oil in Kirkut. At the same time the Sinai Peninsula was given to Egypt in order to gain lucrative control of Suez Canal.
Some Jews still have a warm feeling about US support for Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union. I am one who benefited from this policy. Was it an altruistic gesture made by the United States on behalf of Soviet Jewry or a well calculated and planned collusion by enemies? Couldn't it be that the 'outrageous' demands to allow Jews to be able to leave the USSR permitted the continuation of the charade of the Cold war? This war, which divided the world on spheres of economic and political influence and more importantly arm trade! The USSR had been supplying arms to world revolutionaries, to most Arab countries and India, and the US were in charge of Israel and the rest of the 'free world'. Every state of the world was paranoid and paralysed by fear. All of them were buying weapons! During this game, for almost 12 years, the Soviets 'graciously' allowed Jews to leave the Soviet Union with nothing!
During the last few years, we can see Russia under president Putin has been re-establishing the same 'balance of power' with minimal (or even no) 'resistance' from the USA. As they say: "The game must go on!"
Over two millennia Jews have become used to enraged religious fanatics; to enrich local rulers by borrowing from or robbing Jews; to divert public opinion and the anger of the mob from the failure of the ruling class or government. What is absolutely amazing is that all religious and political spectrums did it; Christians, Muslims, Capitalists, Fascists and godless Communists have been quite skilfully playing this game of robbing and killing Jews!
Contrary to the common misconception that "we (Jews) can't do anything about it", it has only happened because throughout history, after the trauma Jews suffered during the destruction of the Temple and expulsion from Judea and Samaria, we have remained paralysed victims and, after hundreds of years of indoctrination, many Jews started to believe to the lies of our enemies that we are at fault. We did not organise our own defence even when we had sufficient numbers to crush our enemies because we always were made feel as strangers in the strangers' land and feared the reprisal of our enemies.
After 60 years of the independence of the Jewish state, it is time to shake off this subservient mentality and not just ask but demand the due respect from others and proudly obtain full ownership of the land of our ancestors.
About author: Steven Shamrak, born in the Soviet Union, lives in Melbourne Australia. He is a qualified civil engineer and software specialist, and was an active participant in the nascent Moscow Zionist movement before he arrived in Australia 25 years ago. Believing that "a sense of pride, nationhood and connection to all Jewish land" is missing from Jewish hearts, he spends his spare time Educating Jews and non-Jews about Jewish history in the Middle East.
He worked as a construction engineer at the Moscow Olympic Games project and as a computer consultant in Australia. For several years, he has been publishing an Internet editorial letter about the Arab-Israel conflict since August 2001 and has a website http://www.shamrak.com.
IN THESE PSYCHO-POLITICAL circumstances it would be very gutsy to aim to win instead of insecurely trying to conciliate an in-your-face uncooperative "peace partner."
We blabber about "occupation" without asking by which line Arabs demarcate areas where a sovereign Jewish existence might possibly be accepted. Is it the 1949 line? 1947? None at all? Does "occupation" refer only to territories we have held since 1967 or also where Jews settled in 1870?
Judge Richard Goldstone has presented his report on Gaza and, among other recommendations, suggested that Israel conduct its own inquiry. Israeli government officials, assuming he meant an investigation like his into Israel's misdeeds, declined, noting that that they have and continue to investigate their army's behavior on a constant basis.
But after reading most of the report, another possibility presents itself. It rapidly becomes clear to any reader not driven by a thirst for "dirt" on Israel, that Goldstone's work represents a new low in the tragically deteriorating world of international justice. It fails on every count, from its handling of evidence, to its legal reasoning, to its unstated but pervasive assumptions of Israeli guilt and Palestinian innocence, to its astonishing conclusion (from someone who knows the gruesome details of Bosnia and Rwanda), that Israeli behavior was so bad it might well constitute "crimes against humanity."
As a result this report takes the army with the best record in the history of warfare for protecting enemy civilians and accuses it of targeting them. Goldstone makes Kafka's Trial seem fair.
what could one expect from a committee created by the ineptly titled UN Human Rights Council, which is dominated by rogue regimes like Iran, Syria, Somalia, Libya, Cuba and Liberia? Some of the leaders of the member-states would qualify as candidates for prosecution as war criminals. The council's principal common denominator remains an obsessive hatred of Israel, which they condemn more frequently than all the other 191 member-states combined.
In fact, since its inception in 2006, 26 of the 32 resolutions condemning human rights violations passed by the council were directed against Israel. It should also be noted that this UN "human rights" body declined to investigate the monstrous brutalities inflicted on civilian populations in Chechnya, Sri Lanka and Sudan. Indeed it went so far as to bizarrely thank the Sudanese government, the perpetrators of the Darfur massacres, for its "cooperation."
R.P.BenDedek is from Brisbane Australia and is the author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' at http://www.kingscalendar.com His academic articles set forth Apologetics for and results of his discovery of an "artificial chronological scheme" running through the Bible, Josephus, the Damascus Documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Seder Olam Rabbah.
He writes photographic 'Stories from China' and social editorial commentaries, both at KingsCalendar, and as a contributing newspaper columnist. He currently teaches Conversational English in China and in addition to his English Lessons at KingsCalendar, he has created specific sites for Students of English.
