"Do not raise a hand against a brother, not even today. It is forbidden for a Hebrew weapon to be used against Hebrew fighters." ~Begin
Kill the lead dog—and you scatter the pack. But bury the wrong seed—and you end up with a hundred more.
: HaShem tests the righteous: but the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates. :
A Purim
Green
Paper
Humanity holds “Game” Theory in high regard. It’s integral 3/4/11 (1)
to nearly every sphere of human activity. But for some reason
we have yet to similarly appreciate “Toy” Theory---though it’s
no less integral to the human condition than a puzzle might be
integral to the problem that it solves---or the questions that
it raises---or the answers that it holds. Puzzles are to toys
what sciences are to technologies. Toys are inventions. Toys
are devices. Devices of the game. Operational puzzles. Both
men and boys create toys out of puzzles as means to understand
and solve problems. Technology is a man-made toy---a solution
to the man-made puzzle of science. The theories of scientists 3/1/12
are puzzles that scientists create as a means to understanding.
The theories of science are a means to understanding the world
around us. Scientists are merely puzzle makers and toy makers
writ large. Men play their game much more fiercely than their 3/4/11
women play their men’s game. A wife, on the other hand, likes
to play games with her children; while a woman likes to be her
husband’s puzzle. And a woman likes to toy with her man, like
a cat with a mouse. Not unlike the genetic divergence between
adam and the species of his animals, just a few words here and
there can make all the difference between what is, and what is
not. But women play their game far better than their men play 3/6/12
their women’s game. Most men are outplayed by most women when
the choice of game and the field of play is given to the women.
25 What we do as men, and as groups of men, with the games and 3/4/12
the toys around us can tell us much about ourselves, if we are
willing to learn from them. But the heart of man is such that, 3/6/12
as a rule we are disinclined to learn anything about ourselves
that calls into question our passion to create and compete; we
learn from our mistakes only so that we can better compete and
create. The instinct to justify oneself is even stronger than
the instinct to preserve oneself. We play the game to win and
we play the game for keeps---but we will not allow a challenge
to be brought before us as to why we compete, or why we create.
35 This essay is a limited critique of some of the players who 3/7/12
are engaged in the current intrigue and conflict in the Middle
East. It also plays with a few “reverse engineered” pieces of
the puzzles that are the precursors to some of the toys in use
in that same theatre. Sometimes, working backwards from today
is the most effective way to build tomorrow. Historians study
tomorrow by reverse engineering today. A true historian never
sees today as a repetition of yesterday (history never repeats
itself) but rather he searches for the uniqueness of yesterday
as a way to understand the uniqueness of today---and sometimes
as a way to map-out tomorrow. The study of history is nothing
without geography---that is to say, these together are the key
to understanding what “today” (whatever this word means) truly
is. Tomorrow is full of artifacts and toys and maps and words
and histories and geographies and people and places and things.
So let’s start digging, shall we? Let’s dirty our hands today.
When we dig into the earth of Israel what do we find? Jews. 3/7/12 (2)
Jews. And more Jews. They dig their own graves who refuse to
accept these findings; they deny what is all but undeniable to
an objective observer. Who cares what a Jew or an Arab thinks
about the Levant? If no one cared at all about what the Arabs
or the Jews thought about that land, which of them would still
care about it more than the other? When the Arabs have had it
they have cared nothing at all for it. But when the Jews have
had it then the entire world has found itself caring about who
controls it. You can say that this isn’t true, but it is only
you who will be deluded by your denial---the likeminded to you
don’t need your words, anymore than you need their words. You
both are in need of no help at all in order to hate the Jewish
land of Israel, thank you very much. But enough of your pious
indignation. The eretz of Israel is Jewish and was Jewish and
will become ever more Jewish---according to the G-d of the Jew.
17 What is more important to the Arab, an Arab Jerusalem or an
Arab Mecca? Does a Jewish Jerusalem offend the identity of an
Arab? What would a Jewish Mecca mean to his sense of identity?
Or does the Muhammadan think such a thing impossible? What if
Israel took Mecca from the Arabs? What if the Jews decided to
trade Jerusalem for Mecca? And the Kaaba for the Temple Mount?
One toy for another. An even trade. The Jews have lived with
out their Temple---can the Muhammadans live without their cube?
A sacrilegious thought perhaps? Muhammad wasn’t mono-Godly so
much as he was mono-idolatrous. What will become of his faith 3/8/12
if his Kaaba is destroyed? Maybe it would be more helpful for
everyone involved to revisit the status of Mecca. And then we
can talk about Jerusalem. How many followers of Muhammad will
be willing to die for a pile of rubble that used to be a Kaaba?
Billions? Millions might kill in order to revenge their Kaaba,
but their billions would die as a consequence of such violence.
Billions of men, women, and children might die just because we
won’t talk about Mecca. Forget about Jerusalem for now, let’s
talk about Mecca. It’s time to pull back the curtain on death.
36 Mecca is the prize puzzle in the Middle East, not Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is just a Sisyphean rock that foolish statesmen take
upon themselves to play with, until they tire of their efforts.
But solve the puzzle of Mecca and you’ve solved the problem of
the Middle East’s thoroughly processed, and reprocessed, peace.
We all know who controls Mecca, but who deserves to control it?
The Wahabbis have been wont to abuse and humiliate even decent
Sunni hajjis for only Allah knows what reasons, not to mention
Shi’a hajjis. And yet they allow Saudis to erect their brazen
poles within their silken tents wherever their desire inclines
them to do so. Who is the hypocrite? The Salafi or the Saudi?
a pox on both of them, say the Shi’a; and who could argue with
that? What advantage is it to anyone, anywhere, for the Saudi
and the Wahabbi to control Mecca? It’s to their own advantage
alone. The Shi’a know this only too well, more than any Sunni.
And this brings us to the real crux of the crisis unfolding 3/8/12 (3)
in the Middle East. Shi’a Iranians say that they want to kill
Israeli Jews, to purge the Dar al-Islam of apes and pigs. But
what do they want even more? To purge Mecca of the filth that
engorges it. There are no Jews in Mecca, but Mecca is stained
with the sweat of Sunni hubris and Saudi dissipation, and they
don’t care who sees it because they are incapable of any shame.
This is the searing coal that burns in the bosom of the Shiite
chest---Saudi princes feel no shame because they have no shame.
How can such degenerates claim the key to the city of Muhammad?
How can true honor ever be conferred upon those who are unable
to bear shame? A Muslim who cannot experience shame can never
be a true Muslim. Is this not true? But the house of Saud is
shameless in its behavior, so how can it presume to uphold its
honor? Its honor is certainly not from Allah. Who honors the
house of Saud? Infidels. And apes and pigs. And treacherous,
self-serving Wahabbis. Even their kindred Salafi are given to
question Wahabbi fidelity to Allah, as they bow down and utter
their own Sunna. If this isn’t true then they have nothing to
fear from their brothers, yes? But if there is truth to these
words then Saudi and Wahabbi alike will know how they must act.
22 When is Taqiyya not Taqiyya? When a deception isn’t a ruse?
When a feint fools no one? When everyone knows that everybody
is lying? When the one who lies in wait waits too long to act?
The mullahs in Iran are nearly spent; they must choose between
what they hate or what they want. They draw upon their latent
strengths for one defining battle---and they wait while others
wait. Every mullah knows that Muhammad al-Mahdi doesn’t arise
out of the ashes of Jerusalem. Every Sunni knows in his heart
that those ashes of Jerusalem cannot heal the divisions in his
Ummah. Perhaps it will be their Mahdi’s decision to tear down
the House of Saud and rename the foundation, “Ali Arabia”, yes?
33 Who gave Arabia to the House of Saud, and what did they get
in return? While the Sharif was mournfully washing the memory
of seven hundred years, Ibn Saud was proclaiming himself to be
the King of the Hejaz, while exalting himself inside the Grand
Mosque. And then he gave the Hajj away like a cheap adornment
and proceeded straight away to renegotiate his status with one
of the world powers of his day. And even his Ikwhan could not
stand in his way. Who do ayatollahs think themselves to be to
stand in the way of any Saudi King of Arabia? They had better
not get between a Saudi and his oil; and they know better than
to get between the King and his Mecca. Or do they? Maybe not.
44 If they take his oil they can take his place as the world’s
guarantor of an uninterrupted supply of right-priced petroleum
products. Indeed the nations of the world might be pleasantly
surprised to find that the mullahs can be even more reasonable
and accommodating than the Saudis. Because they want the city
of Medina and the city of Mecca more than they want the cities
of the world. Even a Jewish Jerusalem serves a useful purpose.
The Russians and the Chinese get along smashingly with Iran, 3/8/12 (4)
and the clerics get along quite well with them. Why shouldn’t
Europe and the rest of the West expect the same hospitable and
magnanimous behavior? It’s a question of alignments and lines 3/9/12
in the sand. It’s a question of borders and boundaries. It’s
a question of Israelis and Saudis. It’s a question of history
and geography. Most of all, it is a question of good and evil.
8 The problem that evil has with itself is that it frequently 3/8/12
acts in its own self-interest in opposition to the higher aims
of a greater evil, much to the frustration of its highest evil.
The “greater good” for any evil is predicated upon its desires.
The greatest good is the desire that is most immediate to evil;
the smallest good is the desire that is most remote to what it
wants---when and where it wants it. Evil is a slave to desire;
but its own immediate desire is made subservient to the desire
of a distant evil only with great difficulty. By its inherent
nature evil is ever wont to break ranks, even when those ranks
are bound together by a hardened chain of command in the midst
of conflict. The conflict in the Middle East is riven by such
desire. No two or three jihadists should be expected to march
in lock-step there. Jihad begins in the heart, and ends there.
22 But if two or three jihadists desire the same thing or have 3/9/12
the same desire then they conspire individually or together to
get it for themselves or satisfy it in themselves. Conspiracy
theories fill the mind of the jihadi as a soporific palliative
for the sleepless torment of the long night of the Jihadi soul.
The Jihadi heart is ever conspiring against itself; and :there
is no rest for the wicked:. The jihad of desire becomes death.
The kindest thing that can be done to an incorrigible jihadist
is to bury him. If he seeks repentance he may find it, but if
he refuses to repent his torment will increase for an eternity.
The G-d of Israel gives him the time until his death to choose.
33 Do Shi’a and Sunni and the Islamic Republic of Iran and the
House of Saudi Arabia and the many and the few and the greater
and the lesser all desire the same thing, or do they share the
same desire? When it comes to Mecca? Perhaps. When it comes
to Jerusalem? Maybe. But when it comes to Mecca or Jerusalem?
38 The Shi’a despots want a nuclear weapons capability; almost
as much as they want Mecca. If Saudi despots were to offer to
destroy the Zionist Entity themselves, under the understanding
that the Shi’a would forever dismantle their Manhattan Project---
and even if the Shi’a were offered control of what remained of
the Levant and Jerusalem---the King of Saudi Mecca knows quite
well what the answer would be---and emphatically more so if it
were actually in his power to hand over Jerusalem to the Shi’a.
The Jihadi of the Hajj may act with a premeditated hatred, but 3/10/12
he desires what he desires, when and where he desires it. His
hate regulates his desires, but when his desires overwhelm his
hate his behavior is erratic, and the unpremeditated evil that
he commits is self-destructive. His desire kills his aversion.
Iran’s hatred of what the state of Israel embodies is great; 3/10/12 (5)
but its desire for what Mecca represents is far more intensely
felt. The state of Israel is a comparatively distant aversion.
Mecca is near and dear to the Mahdi’s heart. Does the road to
Mecca go through a Levantine wasteland? Or does it go through
the Best of Jihad? A nuclear weapons capability makes a state
capable of far, far more than the mere deployment of a nuclear
weapon. It gives despots the ability to enrich the desires of
disgruntled masses into a potential chain reaction of enormous
energy; and to shape a precise trigger of conventional hatreds;
and to encase them in a weapon that can be deployed by various
delivery methods. Who needs a nuclear weapon? A Saudi Arabia
might need one. A Turkey might need a few. A Kurdistan could
use one if it could get one. But no need to worry, everyone’s
only interested in the peaceful use of nuclear weapons, so all
we have to prepare for is the critical mass of critical masses
and their aversions. Shari ‘a is the prescription for Islamic 3/11/12
aversions of every kind. And apparently, Islamo ‘phobia is an
unfortunate side effect which the Muhammadan must occasionally
endure as the medicine makes his aversions go away. Sugar, by
the spoonful, or by the lump, or by the cube, is thought to be
desirous as an inducement to help the medicine go down. So we
Christians and Jews and Hindus and Buddhists and Humanists and
Animalists and Pagans had best get ready to give the masses of
Muhammad just as much lebensraum as they need---wherever it is
that they choose to live---lest we be forced to take medicines
that will medicate us into something less and less aversive to
Muhammad. But those of us who don’t want to give up the lucid
clarity of individual liberty for a world of heavily medicated
communal delusion would sooner take poison than the shari’a of
Muhammad. And we would sooner deal with jihadist side effects
than live with the cancer of Islamism in our lands for however
long our liberty could withstand it without the chemotherapies
of truth and courage. We are Jerusalem---their aversion. And
they are Mecca---their desire. Their desire is not a place we
will ever be permitted to enter. It will never become a place
which issues permits to create living rooms sufficiently large
to accommodate our aversions to their desire. Their aversions
only become unbearable when they are in proximity to the cause
of their averse effect. The ayatollahs use proxies to counter
their aversions as a way to rationally manage their hatred, to
keep from getting too close to the toxic cause of their effect.
43 The smallest good to Iran is the desire that is most remote
to what it wants. Iran’s aversion to what the state of Israel
embodies is great; but its desire for what Mecca represents is
as great or greater than its hate. An evil greater than Islam
desires the flower of Israel like a pimp desires a virgin girl.
Al-Quran speaks of desire and aversion but it knows nothing of
love. Anyone who is capable of love and who reads a Koran can
only hope to keep their love by choosing the love of the truth.
You can love forever something that is devoid of love. But 3/11/12 (6)
you cannot love indefinitely something that substitutes desire
and aversion for your love. Because love and desire are never 3/12/12
interchangeable terms; just as a horse and its carriage aren’t
interchangeable. Just as hate, and an aversion, are different
things entirely. Righteous desire follows love; but lust goes
before a sinner just as surely as it follows after his selfish
desire. Sinners develop an aversion to truth and their desire
compels them to give their love over to evil---until they have
no love left to give. Devoid of love, hate becomes their only
means to rationalize the evil of their mad aversion and desire.
Insanity hates truth. Its hate is its only false-self defense
mechanism against it. Hate is the only hope of madness; it is
the only way that it can keep its grip on reality---even if it
is a false reality of its own imagination. Truth is the enemy
of evil by mutual declaration. Truth hates evil, and goodness
has an aversion to wickedness. Truth is not subject to desire
or aversion; but goodness loves truth and hates what G-d hates.
19 Evil plays a shell game with love and hate and aversion and
desire. The game involves five things---and four things---and
three things and two things---and one thing. The one is a pea.
And the three things are shells. And five things are a dealer---
and the mark---and the shill---and the muscle---and the police.
The game is played with false dualities that are actually four
things rather than two. And one of the four things is the pea.
And three of the four things are shells that circle each other
in constantly changing dichotomies---two shells, and one shell---
and one shell, and two shells. The game is fixed, and if it’s
played skillfully it will hit its mark, and the mark will lose
every time. It’s not enough to know that the Middle East is a
shell game of shell games. It’s not enough to know who is who
and what is what. It’s not enough to know how the game is won
or lost. It’s not enough to know why the game is played. You
must know the truth if you want to keep your love and the life
that G-d has given you. Love is not a pea, that you will find
it in Islam, beneath the shifting dichotomies of its aversions
and desires. And its hate will rob you of everything that you
love---everything and everyone that you hold dear in your life.
And then at last---when all the love and goodness is gone---it
will take your life. Love is a grain of sands, becoming of a pearl.
41 Religion and politics are games of governance. Power. Not
force. But power. There is nothing like it to those who have
given their souls over to evil. Brute force can be a pleasure...
like a cop in uniform raping a virgin. But to have a pleasure
like the power of a pimp...to compel a virgin to give her body
to a john and her heart and soul to him...all the money in the
world is just an afterthought to such a thing. These thoughts
disturb the sensibility of decent people but they are arousing
to the sensibilities of irreligious and apolitical politicians.
50 Progressive thought and jihadist behavior are just two peas.
That Leftists and Islamists are podfellows should hardly be 3/12/12 (7)
considered strange. Islamists are political creatures for one
thing; and Leftism is a religion for another. Evil finds both
to be quite useful. Both effectively blur the boundaries that
truth imposes upon reality. Evil abhors clarity just as light
displaces darkness. Both effectively replace the discrete and
the unique with the diffuse and the uniform. Both effectively
eliminate the social mores and established norms of traditions
which stubbornly resist even the harshest natural acid or base.
And both of them can be easily eliminated after their purposes
are achieved. They are artificially created religio-political
hybrids which collapse into their internal self-contradictions
soon after the constant influx of external power that sustains
them is withdrawn. In short they short to ground, in a manner
of speechifying. Or loudly fall silent, in their way of speak.
16 The President Elect of the United States of America, Barack
Hussein Obama II (asterisk) is a man of great confidence games.
Let him be clear(ly) seen as a bi-ethnic bi-national bi-racial
bi-sectarian bipartite bisecting player’s player all in one bi.
And let it be clearly understood that all of these byes are in
no way meant as insults...quite the contrary...they are honors...
not as praiseworthy as multi-thises-and-thats...but noteworthy
nonetheless in their own right...left...jab, jab...kind of way.
And make no mistake about it. He is a street fighter of skill.
And refined hatred. But he is easily provoked to anger---much
too easily. The King of Mecca thought he had a lock in Barack.
But his key hasn’t been working lately. He’s almost of a mind
that the White House might have changed his locks...but surely
it couldn’t be...Saddam? he had it coming...Muammar? a nutcase...
Zine saw the writing on the wall...Hosni?...Hosni?...um?...ah?...Hosni...?
31 Who is the man who casually brushes his cheek with just his
middle finger when all the world is watching? Or can the King
of Saudi oil enlighten the world about that odd handshake that
he gave to you when he approached you in your royal court? was
that a bow? or was he mocking you? Supremely confident, is he
not? Does he know something that you don’t? Everyone’s heard
the whispering about Saudi Aramco...the monopoly concern...you
know...but seriously...who are they fooling? Touch the Saudis
and you touch the eye of the whole pyramid. It is unthinkable.
You’d take it all down with them in the blink of an eye...it’s
unimaginable. Unless of course you can re-imagine...no Saudis...
it’s easy if you try. Just give the Hejaz back to the Kingdom
of Jordan...and the petro-dollars to any Palestinians who will
sign a quitclaim deed to any interest they may have, if any or
none at all, in the Levant west of the Jordan river. Win, win.
And those Arabs who love the land they live on, even more than
they love oil, can then begin to cultivate the soil of a peace
that no road map can lead to...a community garden for Arab and
Jew, of peace, between two neighbors...and all due to the grit
of one man. At worst, he can declare martial law and stay put.
It looks as though the Saudis might have a pithy problem if 3/12/12 (8)
they can’t get those Jewish apes and pigs to do the dirty work
for them this time. They’ve got a man in the White House that
likes to play the crying game...for crying out loud...now what
are they supposed to do? The ayatollahs can sense that a game
is being played without them at the table and they’re none too
happy about it. The Russians and the Chinese aren’t placing a
bet. What in the world is going on? What about the Europeans?
They wouldn’t dare call for a show of hands; even though their 3/13/12
position is weak. If it’s weak. They can’t fold. They can’t
call Israel’s bet. Or raise it. Or won’t they? Will they go
for their gun? Who? Will who go for their gun? Did somebody
say, gun? What gun? Someone’s got a gun to someone’s head, I
think. Obama’s sellin’ wolf tickets. Bibi’s bluffin’ his way
out of the crowd; holdin’ a pistol to his own head. Where did
Mel Brooks come from? This is not the time for black humor or
crude jokes. So forget about a punch line. What’s the bottom
line? Somethin’ bout turtles and scorpions...or was it a frog?
19 These are things of the purity-of-arms and brothers-in-arms; 4/5/11
and justice-in-war and enemies-in-war: Anyone in the field of
battle is at risk of life and limb. One who selects the field
of battle is responsible for what happens in that battle field.
And the one who selects whomever he takes to that battle field
bears responsibility for what happens to them. To violate the
embassy of the emissary of your opponent is an act of war; but
to violate the sanctuary of the wounded of your soldiers is an
abomination of war. But to choose to send your women and your
children into battle in front of you---and to choose to compel
your enemy to meet them in your own yards as your chosen place
of battle---makes you into far more than a murderer and a liar
and a thief of war---it makes you into the abomination of that
battle and its war. What is to be done about such an opponent?
Are Jews required to excuse him, for compelling their soldiers
to strike his human shield (by his choice) in order to protect
Jewish women and children from his abominations (as they sleep
in their beds at night)? The righteous soldier of Israel must
be willing to pay the price that Hezbollah and Hamas choose to
insist upon, in every place that Hezbollah and Hamas choose to
make into a field of battle, even if that battlefield was used
as a school, or a hospital, or a sanctuary of life---before it
was converted into a place of death-in-waiting. And if we who
rest securely in our self-righteous sovereignties of the world
cannot or will not see these things for what they are, then we
will die where we stand and our children will be taken captive.
A venal man aims to placate evil; but a righteous soldier will
leave his wife and children far behind him in order to protect
them from the enemy that he attacks out in the field of battle.
48 Israel does not forget. Some old, old accounts are soon to 3/13/12
be settled. For good. For the last time. And for every time
before this last time. Israel’s history is as old as the dirt.
Memory is one thing, and remembrance is another. Memory is 3/7/12 (9)
a thing of knowledge, whereas remembrance is a thing of wisdom.
Remembrance is applied memory. Forgetfulness is the ignorance---
the unawareness---of remembrance. America knows all about her
beginning, but she remembers nothing from it---she forgets her
self. In this regard the saying is true that those who forget
their history are doomed to repeat their folly---all the while
insisting, “but it’s different this time!” in their folly upon
folly. The founding documents of the United States of America
were responses to and outworkings of the folly of the colonies---
they were not a product of great wisdom, they were confessions
to the foolishness of a deistic humanity bereft of its Creator.
13 The Framers of the Constitution were acutely aware of their
own capacity for immense foolishness and depravity---numbering
themselves among the basest of the practitioners of that lofty
form of self-governance to which they deigned to aspire---even
that form which they deigned to take upon themselves to devise---
if even at the behest of and on behalf of and for the lowliest
citizen among them. How long did it take us to forget that we
were not wise then? We were not wise in our own eyes, when we
said what we said, and we wrote what we wrote, and we did what
we did---when we voted as we voted, and we judged as we judged,
and we ruled as we ruled. How long did it take for the ink to
dry on that constituting writ of self-governance which deigned
to say that, “Wisdom begins not with the fear of G-d, it is of
the people, and by the people, and for the people.” We say we
said no such thing---but we eat, and we wipe our mouth, and we
say, “We have done nothing wrong.” And we insist that we were
a Christian nation---and we want everyone who thinks otherwise
to repent. But our ways are right in our own eyes, and we see
no reason to change them, other than to legislate our morality.
And then America will once again be that “Light to the nations”
that was its birthright as the “New Israel”??? Is it the fear
of the only true and living G-d, the G-d of Abraham, and Isaac,
and Jacob, that is the beginning of wisdom? We are not Israel.
36 Many see America as some kind of Judeo-Christian Neo-Israel,
and they share a renewed sense of identity with the new Israel,
which now shines, once again, as a beacon in the olD testamenT
world of their biblE. But the real estate of Israel is little
more than an idea to them---a compelling and powerful idea, no
doubt---but an idea, nonethemore, which has no existential tie
to the real Israel of today. America’s sense of altruism, its
sense of the rightness of its ways, its sense of its exception
to the historical norms of national behavior---does not depend,
for its continuing existence, upon the continuing existence of
Israel, “The land of the Bible was there before a contemporary
Israel, and our beautiful land of America will be here as well.”
48 But there are other Americans who actually believe that God
gave the physical land of Israel to the physical people of God---
which their Bible tells them are the people of Jacob, the Jews.
This truth is an absolute outrage to the sense of rightness 3/7/12 (10)
of the rest of humanity. It’s a slap in the face of humankind.
It deeply offends the intuitive universalism of our perception
of the world around us...we may hate each other, and even kill
each other, but we’re all in this together...and when it’s all
said and done, we’ll finally understand somehow that we’re all
God’s children (whatever that may mean). But the Eternal Hope
of the Bible of the Jews is so audacious that no right feeling
person could possibly be expected to accept it (even if no one
is turned away who will accept it---absolutely no one). If we
must deny our own sense of rightness in order to believe these
claims of exclusivity which are staked-out in the dirt of just
one little sliver of the earth, by just one man among humanity,
in an exclusive and permanent covenant with just one so-called
monotheistic G-d, among all the mysteries of the cosmos around
us...then we must deny everything that we are...and everything
that we have been...and everything that we can be...on our own.
18 Is it any wonder that Israel has so few true friends in our
day and age? Even many Jews who can accept the exclusivity of
their own identity can’t accept the claims of the nation-state
called, Israel. But their history is nothing without the land,
without the geography, of Eretz Yisrael. If the land of Jacob
does not belong to Jacob, then there is no such true person as
a Jew, and there is no such true entity as his G-d. But He Is
the G-d of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And He most certainly
Is the G-d of the Land of Israel. Let the nations rage. Soon
they will tremble. Very soon they will choose their own fates.
28 What is America to Israel? What is Israel to America? May
the collective political will of America always express itself
in a vigilant friendship with the Jewish people, wherever they
may reside, and in a stalwart support for the Jewish character
of the State of Israel. And may Israel be a true friend to us,
even if our leaders are not true friends to her. But may Zion
be true to her G-d, no matter the cost. No matter the cost to
Israel or to America. I am willing to lay down my life for my
nation, in the name of the G-d of Jacob---for the sake of this
nation, and for the sake of the nation of Israel. Who is with
me? There are many Americans who believe as I believe and who
are willing to die just as I am willing to die. But there are
also those who presume to kill the likes of us. To kill or be
killed is a hard choice that is sometimes forced upon a person,
but murder is always a presumptuous act. May we always choose
to die for the sake of truth sooner than we choose to kill for
it. But may we not hesitate to engage the enemies of the Jews
wherever they may be found---even to the shedding of our blood.
46 Because the very persons and the places and the things that
are most worth living for are also the very persons and places
and things that are most worth dying for. May we live and may
we die for the truth of the G-d of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob,
even His Messiah, who is and who was and who is to come, Jesus.
But the truth has :no beauty that we should desire Him:, or 3/11/12 (11)
winsomeness that we should be drawn to Him. The truth is hard
for us to accept; even though it is easy to bear once we truly
accept it. But we rarely accept it on its terms; we negotiate
our way around it. We look behind us; we turn back. And then 3/13/12
we ask to renegotiate. All we want is a truth that mirrors us.
We try to hide ourselves from our Creator. Shall we blame Him
for then hiding His face from us? Shall we say, “Where is God?
We see no God anywhere around us. There is no heaven on earth.
Look around; show us where he is. There is no God.”? But G-d
is a G-d Who hides Himself---in His people, Jacob---and in His
land of the tribes of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob---and in His
history of their redemption---and in the mystery of His people
who have been called-out from all the nations to encompass His
Messiah, the Son of David: as Israel and her commonwealth. As
a bride, encircling the bridegroom. As Tzion beholds her King.
17 The nations of the earth will surround Jerusalem, to oppose 5/30/11
its rightful King. But Israel’s commonwealth---the remnant of
the redeemed nations of the earth---will surround Judah like a
lamb guarding a lion. And the wolf will not be able to choose
the time and place of its attack. To all those with an ear to
hear---to the redeemed of the nations: when the leader of your
nation issues a call-to-arms against the Jewish sovereignty of
Jerusalem---to divide it among the nations---take action where
you are---as innocently as a dove and as shrewdly as a serpent---
to resist such evil, at all cost to yourself---for the sake of
Israel and for the sake of your own nation. Do not allow your
leaders to go to war against Jerusalem in peace---let them war
against you as the righteous remnant of your nation before you
let them war against that city of your true and sovereign King.
31 If you cannot say to Naomi, :Your people shall be my people:,
in truth and in spirit, then neither can you say to Yeshua, in
spirit and in truth, :My L-rd and my G-d.: One who belongs to
the commonwealth of Israel identifies with Israel, as a friend
and a servant of Israel’s King. The kingdom of G-d is at hand.
36 Hold fast to what you have. Light your lamps; the night is 3/13/12
waiting for the sun to set in the west. And if the end of all
things is not near for you, then how much more should you show
hospitality to one another without any agitation in your souls
for what is lost to you at your expense. Nothing is gained by
a homeowner who has too much house to keep. He begs-off on an
angel, without even knowing it, for fear he may be a thief who
will leave in the middle of the night with the flat-screen T.V.
and whatever else he can carry with him. What will that house
holder take with him when the time comes for him to go to jail?
46 Fast for awhile; put away your hunger; pray. What will you
do while Amalek preys upon Jewish stragglers? Will you remain
silent at Israel’s expense? Will relief and deliverance arise
for those Jews from another time and place than this: our here
and our now? What is your here and now to you? Where are you? Plowman
O n e m a n ' s v i o l e n c e m a y b e a n o t h e r m a n ' s " r e s i s t a n c e " : b u t I v r i t w i l l b e t h e l a n g u a g e o f t h e J u d g e .
