Maddeningly Inevitable . . . Frighteningly Unconscionable
Frankly speaking, I’m a bit surprised that the ugly, twisted specter of anti-Semitism has taken quite so long to reappear on the stage of impeachment. To me, it was all but inevitable that as the dramatis personæ of the tragedy entitled Trump v. Constitution of the United States became better known to the public, a certain twisted segment of America would once again claim that Jews - merciless, acquisitive, immoral Zionists - were behind the craven plot to overthrow the Chritian world. This has been on my mind for quite some time; the question was not “will the age-old conspiracy reemerge from the shadows?” but rather, “when?”
About two weeks ago - November 22 to be precise - Rick Wiles, a controversial right-wing pastor, and founder of TruNews, an online hate site, launched a virulently anti-Semitic attack on leading congressional Democrats, claiming that impeachment proceedings against POTUS amounted to a “Jew coup.” On his “True News” program, Wiles, putting Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff between the cross-hairs (“Just look at his eyes . . . you can tell he’s utterly demonic”) and warned:
“That’s the way the Jews work, they are deceivers, they plot, they lie, they do whatever they have to do to accomplish their political agenda. This ‘impeach Trump’ effort is a Jew coup and the American people better wake up to it really fast because this thing is moving now toward a vote in the House and then a trial in the Senate. We could have a trial before Christmas.
This country could be in civil war at Christmastime. Members of the U.S. military are going to have to take a stand just like they did in the 1860s with the Civil War. They are going to have to decide: are you fighting for the North or the South? People are going to be forced, possibly by this Christmas, to take a stand because of this Jew coup in the United States.
This is a coup led by Jews to overthrow the constitutionally elected president of the United States and it’s beyond removing Donald Trump, it’s removing you and me. That’s what’s at the heart of it. You have been taken over by a Jewish cabal.”
Wiles and his demented allies are scared witless by the roster of Jews “leading” or “involved in” the impeachment of the POTUS:
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Chair, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): Chair: House Judiciary
Elliot Engel (D-NY) Chair: House Foreign Affairs
Ted Deutch (D-FL) Chair: House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Terrorism
Ted Deutch (D-FL) Chair: House Ethics Committee
Steve Cohen (D-TN) Chair: House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman: Director of European Affairs, National Security Council - witness
Amb. Gordon Sondland: U.S. Ambassador to European Union - witness
Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine
Other Jewish members of the House Judiciary Committee include Steven Cohen (D-TN), Ted Deutch (D-FL) David Cicilline (D-RI), and Jaimie Raskin (D-MD)
Other Jewish member of Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence: Elise Stefanik (R-NY)
Not surprisingly, many of those accusing Jews of belonging to an insidious, conspiratorial cabal bent on overthrowing the government, claim it is being financed by George Soros, a liberal Jewish billionaire. (These same anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists have also long believed that during the Holocaust, the then-teenage Soros was a Nazi collaborator.)
During her testimony before the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Dr. Fiona Hill, former deputy assistant to the president and senior director for Europe and Russia on the National Security Council staff, likened a right-wing narrative casting liberal Jewish billionaire George Soros as all-controlling to a notorious anti-Semitic forgery. The narrative that Soros is behind an array of evildoings “is the new Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” Hill said Thursday in hearings. “It’s an absolute outrage.”
Soros has become a bugbear for some right-wingers, who blame his liberal philanthropy for a number of ills, citing little evidence. Trump himself last year blamed Soros for an “invasion” of Central American migrants that never materialized. Even loony Texas Representative Louie Gohmert brought up the Soros-as-Nazi-collaborator canard while being interviewed on Fox News. Despite having been thoroughly discredited years ago, the Soros fabrication, like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is a lie that will not die.
Even as “classical” anti-Semitic memes and tropes are beginning to resurface with a vengeance, evangelical support for Israel - which they tend to refer to as “The Holy Land” - remains strong. It is a fact that the largest pro-Israel group in America is not the overwhelmingly Jewish AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) but the overwhelmingly Evangelical “Christians United For Israel,” which was founded by the Pastor John Hagee in 2006.
Indeed, it is more than anomalous that some of the most fervently pro-Israel Christians can, at the same time, find such innate, conspiratorial evil in Jewish people themselves. But even here, a crack is beginning to appear. “Doc” Burkhart, Rick Wiles’ on-air co-host recently gave a call for listeners and viewers to repent for supporting Israel. Burkhart led his audience to confess their sin of standing with Israel: “Lord, I’m so sorry. I don’t how I was so deceived. I don’t how I was so bewitched by all of this,” he asks his viewers to pray. “I thought it was a good thing to support the people of Israel. I thought it was a good thing to help Israel. But now I see it’s just people using the name of Israel, people using the people of Israel in order to line their own pockets, in order to build their own kingdoms, in order to make themselves feel important.”
Burkhart/Wiles’ astonishingly foul heresy even has a name: “Replacement Theology,” which teaches its adherents and acolytes “Jesus, You are my Zion. Jesus, You are my Promised Land. Jesus, You are my Temple. Jesus, You are my Eternal Capitol, Lord.”
We live in an increasingly angry, maddening and dangerous world. That Jewish support for Israel has been called into question by those who see it as a portal to the Apocalypse and its Chosen People as agents of evil is frighteningly unconscionable.
חָזַק חָזַק וְנִתחַזֵּק
(Chazak chazak v’neetchazayk):
“Be strong, be Strong and We Shall Be Strengthened”
335 days until the presidential election
Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone