Wednesday 14 July 2010

How Should We View the Jews?


By Dr.D


One of the questions that arises repeatedly among those of us in the West is “how should we view the Jews?” Within ourselves, this is one of our most divisive questions, causing much internal strife within Western civilization today. There are so many ways to look at the Jews, that it becomes at times a bewildering task to sort them all out. For example, we can say, “the Jews are, taken all together, only a handful of people, scattered across the face of the earth, and persecuted in many places. How can we have anything but pity for the Jews?” At the other extreme, there are many (besides the muzlims) who say, “the Jews are the source of all of the problems of mankind; get rid of the Jews, and the world will be a better place.” In this latter camp are the proponents of the famous publication known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, purporting to be the evil plans of the Jews. In the first group, we find most evangelical Christians, who say things like, “Jesus was a Jew, so how can we possibly think evil of the Jews?”

All of us who live in Western society enjoy the benefits of a Judeo–Christian heritage, the direct result of the development of Christendom in Europe over the past two millennia. This is true for non–Christians as well as for Christians in Western society, because this is the basis for our civil law, our customs, every aspect of our culture is grown out of this background. In order to have a basis for an opinion about how we should view the Jews, we should first know something about them.

Who are the Jews?
We read in Holy Scripture that at the time the Lord God made the Covenant with Abram, giving him his new name Abraham, he also said in Genesis 17:4 As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. By the term, “the Jews,” we mean the “many nations,” the descendants of Abraham as promised by God through his son, Isaac. We might note, however, that in verse 20, God also promises to make of Abraham’s other son, Ishmael, a great nation which is where we get the Arabs. Thus the enmity and jealousy between the Jews and Arabs goes all the way back to this time.

God gave the land of Palestine to Abraham and his descendants after him as their dwelling place, but if you know Bible history, it was not a smooth, simple occupation of their new home. Before too long, they suffered a 400 year captivity in Egypt as slaves of Pharaoh, King of the Egyptians. This ended when they were led out of captivity by Moses, who led them into the desert of Sinai, where he received the Law, the 10 Commandments directly from God on Mount Sinai as recorded in Exodus 20. Thus to be a Jew came to be one who followed the Law of Moses.

Without going into any details, let it suffice to say that by about the 8th century BC, the once strong kingdom that had been created under the great king David at approximately 1000 BC, was by that time divided into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The nation had split right after the death of Solomon, son of David, and existed as two separate kingdoms for about 200 years. The Northern Kingdom consisted of ten out of the twelve tribes of Israel, while the Southern Kingdom had only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. In 721 BC, the Assyrians swept down from the north and annihilated the Northern Kingdom, This disbursed the peoples of the Northern Kingdom, the so–called 10 Lost Tribes of Israel, up into Assyria, Asia Minor, and some say on into Europe, the first diaspora of the Jews. But this does not mean that they left Judaism behind, only that it began to spread beyond the limits of Palestine.

What was left, of course, was the now isolated Southern Kingdom of Judah that lasted another 133 years until 588 BC when it was defeated and the people were marched into exile in Babylon, another dispersion of the Jewish people. In 536 BC, Cyrus, King of Babylon, issued a command to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, and this began the repatriation of many Jews. But as with any exile, not all returned, so once again, Judaism was spread outside the borders of Palestine.

By the first century AD, there are estimated to have been 2 million Jews in Palestine, and some 5 million Jews living outside of Palestine throughout the Greco–Roman world.[1] The Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, along with Masada and other Jewish strongholds will only change these figures by a few hundred thousand at most, probably much less. Thus we may conclude that by the time of Christ, we are talking about a rather large number of people scattered throughout the then known world, but all still practicing Judaism. Judaism is what makes a Jew, at least historically.

By the time of Christ, Judaism had evolved into a considerably more complex affair than simply being a descendant of Abraham and a keeper of the 10 Commandments, although these were sort of the minimum requirements. By that time, a multitude of additional “laws” had been added to Judaism, giving it a very legalistic structure. Judaism at this time split into four identifiable parts:

1. The party of the Sadducees who were primarily from the upper classes, very focused on the priestly activities associated with Temple worship, and located exclusively in Jerusalem.[2] They tended to have a fairly conservative outlook on Judaism itself, holding to the books of Moses while not acknowledging the Prophets, Wisdom or History books. On the other hand, they were very concerned that Temple worship not be interrupted, and thus were willing to accommodate the Roman government readily.

2. The party of the Pharisees are well known to us through the Gospels for their intense focus on keeping all 613 points of the Jewish Law in every detail. The text of the Torah was the thing of central importance to the Pharisees, just as the Sadducees had been focused on the Temple.

3. The Essene community was focused on religious purity, particularly purity of the land. They felt that the land was defiled by the presence of gentiles, the Romans, and they withdrew to the Qumran community and other similar sites to seek purification.

4. The Zealots were very politically oriented, with kingship as their central symbol. They tended to plot revolution, overthrow of the Roman government, etc. because their focus was on the return of the worldly Davidic kingdom.

While these several divisions are primarily associated with Judaism in Palestine, they extend to some extent outside there as well. With the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, only one of these segments of Judaism had any real possibility of survival and that was the party of the Pharisees. The Sadducees were tied to the Temple in Jerusalem which had all been destroyed, the Essenes communities were wiped out and the land was even more “polluted” in their eyes by this massive new gentile force, and the hopes of the Zealots were completely dashed. It was only the Pharisees, who were tied only to the written word of the Law and could thus move and bend, who were able to survive. For this reason, most of Judaism as we have it today has its roots in the party of the Pharisees.

It has been remarked that Judaism is what makes a Jew, but that requires a bit of qualification at this point. Historically the bare statement was unquestionably true as it stands, but today we have something new. We have two kinds of Jews; there are religious Jews (as you might expect), but there are also cultural, or secular Jews. The first are Jews who continue to follow the classic Jewish religion, in somewhat evolved forms, but still recognizable and traceable from the earlier forms.

The modern secular or cultural Jews are people who claim a Jewish heritage, but follow little, or in some cases none, of the the actual Jewish religion. They still see themselves as Jews, they still cluster together and have all of the group characteristics, and they often will bring out some aspect of the Jewish religion at special times, such as for a wedding or a funeral. Otherwise, the actual religion means very little to them and they frequently eat pork and violate all of the other dogma of Judaism. Despite the lack of religious faith, they exhibit practically all of the other characteristic of all Jews.

Why Do We Tend To Distrust The Jews?
One of the questions we ought to consider is just why do we distrust the Jews? On the face of it, it does not make much sense. Very few Jews are violent, very few Jews are known to steal, very few Jews engage in property damage or vandalism. So why do we distrust the Jews?

Well, if we look just a little bit deeper, we find that Jews are well known for sharp business dealings, for taking advantage of the unsuspecting, for being “hard hearted” business men. Of course, there are countless many Gentile business men who could be accused of the same things, but somehow, the Jews have been particularly stigmatized in this regard. It is in the area of money and banking that the Jews are particularly frowned upon, since they are often associated with having financed many wars fought by nominally Christian countries. The banking organization associated with the Jewish family Rothschild is particularly blamed for this, many people saying that if the bankers had refused the finances, the wars would not have happened. The correctness of that assertion is debatable all day long. But it definitely causes people to look at this particularly very wealthy Jewish family and say, “they are just in it for the money; they do not care how many die.”

But there is a much more significant cause for distrust than simply Jewish financial interests. As observed above, Judaism is what makes a Jew. This means that every Jew, no matter where he lives or what his citizenship may be, feels a strong bond with every other Jew. This is true to some extent with the members of every group, whether it be medical doctors, Roman Catholics, Freemasons, or Boy Scouts, ... or the Jews. But it has shown itself to be uniquely powerful through the ages in the case of the Jews. The Jews in every nation have maintained contacts with Jews in other nations, even in conflict with the interests of their host nations.

Except in their own nation state of Israel, Jews have always been in the minority wherever they have lived. Thus they have always thought in terms of survival tactics. On the one hand, that is understandable, but when we as Gentiles look at that, we realize that they are talking about the survival of Jews, not the survival of our nations. The two may be quite different, and that causes us a lot of concern. What is good for the individual Jew, or for a group of Jews, may be deadly for our nation. And we must remember that Jews always see themselves as Jews first, and only secondarily as citizens of whatever nation they may belong to. Thus the Jews are seen as always being potential fifth columnists within our society. It is inherent in who they are. How can you trust someone like that?

But Are Jews Really Like That?
Many Jews seem like fine people, people that you can trust and have fair, open honest dealings with every day. How can we suspect a whole people?

As a boy, many long years ago, I lived down the street from the family of an Orthodox Rabbi. I often played with one of their sons. On several occasions, on Friday evenings, Mrs. Geller asked me to come into her kitchen to light the gas cook stove for her so she could warm the evening meal for the family. It was a simple matter of striking a match, turning on the gas, and waiting a moment for the flame to catch, but she could not do this because the Sabbath had begun and she could do no work on the Sabbath. She could not do it, but she saw no problem with asking a goy child to do it. She, a member of the Chosen People, could not do this because it violated one of the 613 points of the Pharisaic Law, but she saw no harm in asking me, one of the non–chosen and therefore expendable people, to do this because she was sure I was of no concern anyway. Thus reasons my friend the orthodox Jewish housewife! In the eyes of the Jews, they alone are the elect of God, they alone will be saved, and the rest of us really do not matter at all.

One of the most prominent Jews in modern American life is Dr. Henry Kissinger. He has held important positions within the US government, most particularly Secretary of State as well as advisor to several Presidents, etc. He is seen by many as a true public servant, but how well has he really served American national interests?

In January, 1973, in the effort to bring the Viet Nam war to an end, Kissinger was the principal peace negotiator for the US in Paris leading to the Paris Peace Accords. One of the several terms of those accords was this:

As soon as the ceasefire is in effect, U.S. troops (along with other foreign soldiers) would begin to withdraw, with withdrawal to be complete within sixty days. Simultaneously, U.S. prisoners of war would be released and allowed to return home. The parties to the agreement agreed to assist in repatriating the remains of the dead.
While it is certainly true that some American POWs were released and returned home under this agreement, it appears fairly certain that not all were.
http://tinyurl.com/24dyajb

It appears that a substantial number of the POWs, perhaps a third or more of the total, were kept behind by the Communists for some unknown purpose, perhaps as an intended bargaining chip for some future purpose. That purpose seems to have never materialized, but these men have been simply abandoned by the American government, even though their existence is definitely known. While it would be wrong to try to pin this exclusively on Henry Kissinger, it seems that he would surely be one of those involved in the decision to abandon these men. He negotiated the treaty, and he was the premier Presidential advisor at the time. This is truly shameful in the extreme.

In September, 1976, Kissinger played a major role in the downfall of Rhodesia by employing the international political influence of the United States to bring about the end of White minority rule there. He soon thereafter applied similar influence to pressure South Africa in the same way. In both of these countries, the result has led to the genocide of White people and the destruction of those nations as functioning societies. It is very difficult to argue that this served American interests in the world.

As a final comment on Henry Kissinger, let me remark that he is a regular participant in the Bilderberg Group which is known to support world government (even though they say that is not their primary goal). Kissinger has thrived personally in America (he was born in Germany), but has he served America well? I think there is reason to question this. His concerns seem to be much more international than American. That comes close to treason.

Let me discuss one other specific Jew who has been somewhat visible in American life recently. This is Sholom Rubashkin, a late middle aged rabbi from New York City who served as CEO for a family owned slaughter house in Postville, IA. Around 2003, this plant and one in Nebraska were monitored by undercover agents for the USDA and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The result was a finding that the slaughter houses were in gross violation in the way that they were killing the animals. This is described in stomach churning detail at the following site:
http://tinyurl.com/2hmjrk

More recently, in May of 2008, the Postville plant was raided in a search for illegal aliens. It was a highly successful raid and quite a large group were rounded up for deportation. Many more likely escaped but are thought to have self–deported to avoid being caught. It develops that Rubashkin was apparently fully aware of the illegal status of many of his employees. He did not pay them all of their wages, and they had to continue to work in the hope to collect in dribbles what they were owed. He was charged and convicted and is now in jail. This is described at the following URL:
http://tinyurl.com/2bopq73

One of the very interesting aspects of Sholom Rubashkin, and the reason I bring him up, is to show something about Jewish thought in such situations. Here is a highly educated man, a rabbi, an American citizen from New York City, essentially in exile in the sticks in small town Iowa where he is compelled to run the family business. But when things get sticky, when it looks like the law is going to come down hard on him, where does he plan to go? Well, when he was taken into custody, he was carrying a large amount of money in cash in a suitcase with his passport, and it appears that he was headed to Israel. By the Jewish state’s Law of Return, any Jew can come to Israel at any time, so he would have had a nice, secure place to hang out and watch the sun set over the Mediterranean and forget about the corn fields of Iowa and all of those wetbacks. Gentiles don’t have that option, but Jews do.

Rather than talk about individual Jews, what about Jews at large, specifically the modern nation state of Israel? How have they acted towards the US? Are they not considered one of our best long term allies? Well, yes, but ...

On the afternoon of 8 June 1967, the USS Liberty was attacked and severely damaged by Israeli jet aircraft while operating in the Mediterranean Sea in international waters off the Sinai. The Liberty was an intelligence gathering ship, covered with antennas, very lightly armed. The attack occurred during the Six Day War between Israel and her Arab neighbors, but it was definitely not a case of mistaken identity. Intercepted radio signals between the pilots and their ground controllers show the pilots reporting that the Liberty was an American ship, clearly flying the US flag, and the ground controllers saying to attack anyway.

The heat seeking missiles used by the Israelis went straight for the radio antennas, and quickly knocked them all out, except for one antenna that had not been in use. The Liberty was able to put that one antenna back into service and get out a distress call to the carrier USS America that was operating elsewhere in the Med, and fighters were scrambled to come to the aid of the Liberty. Word got back to Washington where LBJ and his Cabinet quickly met and called back the fighters, leaving the Liberty defenseless, an act of great treachery, the sort of thing one might expect from Lyndon B. Johnson.

After the air attack ended, the Israelis sent torpedo boats to the area and fired several torpedoes into the Liberty. They also sent helicopters to shoot up life rafts to try to assure that there were no survivors, a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions. The USS Liberty did not sink. There were 34 crewmen killed and 173 were wounded, but the ship sailed away to a safe harbor.
http://tinyurl.com/louzdo

The full story on the Liberty has only come out within the past few months. The cover–up in the US was massive, involving many government officials and top military brass, all of which is utterly shameful. But the original aggressive action here, the case of this great loss of life, was the Israelis who wanted that ship sunk. We don’t know to this day what the USS Liberty had that was of such value to the Israelis. We can speculate that the Liberty may have monitored some Israeli activity during the Six Day War that they did not want known. But they did not hesitate to kill our seamen and try to sink our ship in order to achieve their goals, whatever they were. They are that sort of friends.

One other comment about how the nation of Israel has acted will probably be sufficient. It is well established that Israel has done spying on the US in just exactly the same manner as have the Russians, the Red Chinese, etc. We know also, that even though we give them massive amounts of money as foreign aid, significant amounts of that money come right back to the US as bribes to try to influence particular members of Congress to secure particular actions. These do not seem like the actions of a true friend, the sort of person one can really trust.

So, How Should We View The Jews?
As the Judeo–Christian West, I think that there are several things we can say about how we have to look at the Jews.

1. We should see the Jews in some ways like we see the Muzlims; they are always different from us.
There is an “otherness” about both Jews and Muzlims that makes them eternally different from us as Western people. We are very foolish if we fail to recognize it. They both have a heritage that takes them both back thousands of years, all the way back to the Patriarch Abraham, and sets them apart from all of the other peoples of the world. They are conscious of this, aware of this, and we must be also.

2. We should see the Jews as people we can often deal with productively, unlike the Muzlims.
The “otherness” of the Muzlims shows itself largely in a completely perverse nature making it impossible to have any enduring productive relation with them. This is assured by their own Koran that enjoins them not to form friendships with non-muzlims. With Jews on the other hand, there are no fundamental barriers to good working relations, although sometimes things are strained. In most cases, however, Jews and Gentiles have been able to work together in the world of work without conflict.

3.We should remember that the Jews do not see the world through Western eyes.
This comment requires some qualification in that, many modern Jews do see the world to some extent through Western eyes. Many of them have been educated in the West, in Europe and the US, so they have Western cultural values to a large extent. On the other hand, many of the Jews in Israel have come from Poland, Ukraine, and Russia and do not have very Western views at all.

4. We should generally be supportive of the Jews, in an arms–length sort of way, realizing that they are not, and never will be, us.

It is delusional to think that Jews will ever be one with us, so while we should wish to be supportive, we have to realize that their interests are not entirely aligned with our own and they will always act in their own interests, not ours; remember the USS Liberty. It is foolhardy to let Jews into our key leadership positions for this very reason. They will always act as Jews first, and as citizens second.

Conclusion
Our view of the Jews needs to one of cautious, somewhat distant, friendship. It needs to be always conscious of their otherness and their own awareness of that fact. We need to be supportive, but not too trusting. It is very important for the Jews to have a homeland of their own, because truly they do not really belong in ours. By this I do not propose the expulsion of the Jews, but I do mean that they should not be trusted with the essential elements of Western society. They are not us.

References

1. Early Christianity: The Experience of the Divine, Prof. L.T. Johnson, lecture transcript, vol. 1, p. 103

2. ibid, p. 120.

COMMENTS ON THIS THREAD ARE NOW CLOSED