This article is an acknowledgement of grave disorder in the halls of our government. It is a kind of disorder that can’t be set right by judgement, scolding and condemnation. It can only be addressed with blessings and prayers. This is a desperate call for blessings and prayers for a disputed land. Nothing less will do. But first the problem must be described.
In 2016, progressives presented a new direction for the United States. It was based on the reality of climate change, diminishing farmland, pollution of water resources, and a growing population. We proclaimed that instead of addressing these things, our government was building weapons with which to destroy far-away people. In the process, they were dropping white phosphorus, which destroys anything it touches–buildings, human bodies and land. This they continue to do.
An attempt to describe the ailment
We face two intractable cases: Russia/Ukraine and Palestine/Israel. The administration has obviously gone the opposite direction from what we had hoped. The political establishment cleverly side-stepped progressive demands and defeated our presidential candidate. Now, they apparently think they have silenced us. It’s as if they think an electoral cycle was the only obstacle to their plans–as if reality is the ideology of the winning candidate. But I don’t intend to scold. I’m trying to describe the ailment. The administration knows all of the details that will be described here. What they don’t know is that we know them too, and we fear for the administration and pity them.
Possible diagnoses and recommendations
To the Biden administration, considering your inappropriate response to Israel’s destruction of Gaza and the suffering of the Palestinians, possible diagnoses follow. The first one would be collective mental illness. Another would be moral immaturity. A third would be a wholesale capitulation to greed and hubris. A fourth diagnosis would be childish defiance. A fifth would be demonic possession. Whatever the diagnosis, the whole world can see what is happening to you. You alone can’t see it. Still, I think it is important that we are all on the same page, so, please read the following and feel free to correct any material errors.
The crisis in Israel and Palestine is the climax of decades of dereliction of duty by Great Britain, the United States, and their allies. This dereliction of duty has allowed a vicious, racist cabal to take control of the Israeli government, the Israeli military, the United States Congress, and the European Union. Today, as the rest of us bemoan the killing of Palestinians, many of us are not fully aware of the momentum behind this massacre. This is a wake-up call for those people.
It is not as simple as demanding that the killing stop, although that has become the most urgent problem since October 7. But going forward, the dereliction of duty must be explained in political terms. Then our government and its allies must be called to repentance. The following is taken from an article I found on the website of the Institute for Palestinian Studies. Please see the full article for further details and footnotes.
The rot
Most recently, the Trump administration moved American foreign policy on Israel and Palestine to the far right. But Trump’s policies have not moved back to the left since the end of his administration. Why? Because Trump was only accelerating a long-standing policy, or lack thereof, toward Israel. US politicians in both parties have been courting the Jewish far right for decades. The Trump administration was just more brutish.
Trump’s choice of Jared Kushner as special advisor, and David Friedman as ambassador to Israel encouraged Benjamin Netanyahu to put a terrorist movement in the Israeli parliament. Previously this movement had had no visible ties to Netanyahu, although ties certainly existed. This meant that the Kahanist movement, as the terrorist movement is still called, could violently expand Israeli settlements while Netanyahu denied responsibility. Thanks to Trump the connection no longer has to remain hidden.
Both Kushner and Friedman had been donating money to groups associated with the followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane. They funneled money through a think tank associated with Kahane and headed by Rabbi Dov Lior. Dov Lior often praises famous mass murderers in Israeli history, such as Baruch Goldstein.
Benjamin Netanyahu: inheritor of Rabbi Kahane’s patrons
Rabbi Meir Kahane was assassinated in 1990, after which his wealthy patrons decided to fund Benjamin Netanyahu. These patrons include Manfred Lehmann, Reuben and Rose Mattus, Irving Muskowitz, Kenneth Abramowitz, Simon Falic and Sam Domb, among others. Organizations associated with Meir Kahane and Israel’s Kahanist prime minister continue to have Kushner’s and Friedman’s loyalty.
During Netanyahu’s last premiership, Netanyahu personally oversaw the installation of more illegal settlement infrastructure in occupied Palestine territories than had been built in the previous 25 years. Kahanist groups showed their appreciation of Trump’s support for Israeli expansion by minting a coin with his face and gifting him with a silver Torah crown.
Kahanist Jewish Power party leader Itamar Ben Gvir was elected to the Knesset in 2021, and two months later he organized anti-Palestinian pogroms across the country. Unfortunately but predictably, Israeli media was not at all critical of the riots, and Ben Gvir was given more screen time than any other Knesset member. He placed third in the November 2022 elections, while Kahanists won fourteen of 120 seats in the Knesset. In his present term, Netanyahu has gone so far as to install Ben Gvir as his national security minister with power over Israel’s security forces. Ben Gvir’s injustices, legislative and otherwise, are too many to list. Please see the article.
A brief history of the rot
This is a brief history of the rot. This corruption has been going on at least since Israel signed the Oslo Accord with the PLO in 1993. Immediately after it was signed, the Kahanist community of New York City waged a war against the Accord. They also waged a hate campaign against Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin. At a rally led by Anthony Weiner in Times Square in 1993, they publicly called Rabin a murderer and warned that he was leading Israel to ‘national suicide’. The Village Voice quoted a rally attendee who said, “Rabin is worse than Hitler…Rabin should be killed.’ In 1995, Labor Party Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a disciple of Baruch Goldstein. Six months later, Benjamin Netanyahu became prime minister of Israel with the help of Kahanists.
Ongoing opposition to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority
A continuing aim of the Kahanists seems to be to discredit the Palestinian Authority. In 2004, Rabbi Moshe Tendler slurred Yasser Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, at a dinner of the far-right Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). Then the Democratic candidate for new York city mayor, Anthony Weiner, took the microphone and called for an end to all US aid to the Palestinian Authority. Kahanists not only slur the PA’s leaders, they advocate legislation to reduce or eliminate its funding. For example, a Kahane-related fund raising organization influenced Senator D’Amato to introduce a bill in Congress hobbling US aid to the PA.
Republican infamy
Republican infamy and support for the Kahanist organization and its sister organizations is not surprising. Democratic support, on the other hand, is disturbing. First I’ll report a few items of Republican infamy. In March 2022 Mike Pence assured the Kahanists of American support when he visited Hebron. While touring the Ibrahimi Mosque, he said to Ben Gvir, ‘Stay strong, and we’ll stand with you’. The Ibrahimi Mosque is the place where Goldstein committed his massacre, accompanied by Ben Gvir. Goldstein murdered twenty-nine Palestinians during prayers in 1994 while wounding another 120.
Christian American far right, Jewish American far right, and AIPAC
The Christian American far right embraces the most extreme Zionist Kahanist terrorists, while the Jewish American far right, which dominates the American Zionist lobby, embraces the most extreme Christian nationalists. They include US Senate, House, and gubernatorial candidates who supported the January 6 insurrection. Last, but not least, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has issued public statements of support for more than a hundred supporters of the Trump-led January 6 riots.
The Democratic Party is right behind the Republicans
As mentioned above, the Democratic Party is right behind the Republicans. For decades, AIPAC and its sister PACs have been taking millions of dollars from supporters of Kahanist causes and giving them to Democratic primaries. Particularly in New York, politicians in both parties are aware that the city’s rabbis wield political influence.
Rabbis and racist elected officials
Rabbi Moshe Tendler, who died in 2021, was spiritual advisor to top Democratic Party politicians. He also played a pivotal role in the election campaigns of Rockland county District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz. Gribetz was DA for twenty years with, Tendler’s help.
Democratic state representative, Dov Hikind, was a racist Democratic state representative. He was able to deliver the votes of his constituents for thirty-five years because his Brooklyn district of Borough Park contains the largest concentration of Orthodix and ultra-Orthodox Jews in the United States. Hikind admits this was a block vote. In other words, conservative communities obey their religious leaders when they cast their votes.
Most Jews are Democrats. But even Orthodox Jews were initially lukewarm about the Zionist project. Unfortunately, when they saw that Israel was able to beat multiple Arab armies in the 1967 war, they decided Israel must have inaugurated a pre-messianic era. According to this interpretation, it followed that the Israeli government should dominate the surrounding nations rather than coexist with them.
Democratic grandstanders and hangers-on
They help elect Republicans
To continue the saga of Democratic grandstanders and hangers-on, Hikind also helped elect Republicans such as US Senator Al D’Amato, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and New York Governor George Pataki.
Sam Domb, a patron of Benjamin Netanyahu, foots the bill for New York’s annual Salute to Israel Parade down Fifth Avenue in return for certain perks. The event now includes a concert in Central Park, featuring speeches from racist figures in the Jewish community. New York City politicians have attended, including Former Congressman Anthony Weiner, former State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Assemblyman David Wepriin.
And well-known Democrats
In 2020, Domb helped fund Democrat Bill de Blasio’s run for the US presidency. He also told Haaretz in 2003 he had funded Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Here is a list of additional Democrats beholden to Kahanist related figures: Chuck Schumer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Lois Frankel and Ted Deutch, US Representative Josh Gottheimer, US Senator Bob Menendez and US Representative Juan Vargas.
Sadly, Joe Biden is also implicated. In May 2022, just after Israel’s thirty-sixth government lost its majority, and early polling pointed to its impending demise, the US State Department announced that it no longer considered the Kahanist group Kahane Chai to be a terrorist organization. ‘The move sent a clear signal to Netanyahu that US President Joe Biden did not object to his including the Kahanists in any future government’.
And if this information isn’t damning enough for the Democratic Party, ‘Robert Kennedy Jr. has made a public pilgrimage to the home of Dov Hikind and received his endorsement.’
To the governments of the US and her allies: Repent and ask God for mercy
To individual officials in our Democratic administration and allied governments: Stop what you are doing. It will be difficult. Those who are paying you will object. So will your colleagues who are on the take. But you have no choice. You must confess and forsake your evil ways. Why? Because there will be eternal consequences for your behavior. Repent and ask God for mercy.