November 2023 – About Things That Matter

Imperialism, Israel, Hamas, and “Life of Brian”

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, our family watched together one of our favorite films, “Life of Brian.”

It’s the comic story of Brian Cohen, a Jewish man born on the same night as Jesus of Nazareth in an adjoining stable. Like the historical Jesus (described for instance in books like Reza Aslan’s Zealot), Brian becomes part of a political resistance movement intent on expelling Roman occupiers from the Jewish homeland.

Setting comedy aside, what struck me this time while watching the film were its undeniable and highly ironic echoes of the current struggle in Palestine between Jewish colonial settlers there and resistance movements such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Fatah. That’s because the movie successfully portrays the overbearing nature of Roman imperialism itself, the consequent resistance of Israel’s people, and the power of Rome’s “divide and rule” tactics bolstered by highly effective imperial propaganda.

I find the same techniques employed today in Israel’s struggle with Hamas. Like the Romans in the first century, the settler-colonial regime in Israel seeks to impose its will on indigenous Palestinians by overwhelming force of arms. The Zionists employ imperialism’s traditional “divide and rule” strategy. They also disseminate powerful propaganda that to this day convinces many of the benign nature of colonial robbery and oppression.

Let me show you what I mean.

The Life of Brian

As already indicated, “Life of Brian” portrays a biography that parallels in many ways the life of the prophet, Jesus of Nazareth. Both along with thousands of other Jewish insurgents suffered crucifixion under Rome’s cruel imperialism. (Remember, crucifixion was a form of capital punishment reserved for insurgents, revolutionaries, and related “terrorists.”)

Despite that threat, Brian decides to join one of the many Jewish resistance movements that characterized early first century Israel. Young and naïve, he seems unsure of his exact motivation. But it’s somehow connected with trying to impress a girl in the movement called Judith.

Because of his “success” in covering Jerusalem’s walls with anti-Roman graffiti, Brian soon finds himself gradually moving up in the ranks of The Jewish Resistance Front. He also becomes associated with resistance preachers who, like Jesus, find anti-Roman inspiration in Judaism’s religious traditions. People gradually come to regard him as a prophet.

Somewhat reluctantly fulfilling that role and after many narrow escapes from the pursuing Roman occupiers, Brian is finally arrested. In the end, he’s crucified like Jesus who, of course, found himself identified as a prophet as well.

Divide and Rule

In terms of understanding Roman and today’s Zionist imperialism, “Life of Brian” places high emphasis on Rome’s infamous tactics of “divide and rule.” This means setting resistance groups against one another, so that they end up identifying comrades in arms as enemies rather than their real oppressors, the foreign occupiers themselves. To the bemusement of the Roman occupiers, “The Jewish Resistance Front” finds itself at odds with “The People’s Front of Judea,” “The Front for Jewish Resistance,” and with “Jews against Roman Occupation.”

The effectiveness of “divide and rule” is portrayed in a key scene in “Life of Brian” where members of two opposition movements meet on their way to a kidnapping (a traditional resistance tactic employed even today by Hamas). In any case, the two groups end up fighting each other over whose idea it was to employ the tactic. Meanwhile the Roman military observes the encounter from afar– as if they were unaware of Rome’s deliberate complicity in sowing discord among resistance movements.

Similarly, “Life of Brian” portrays the complete effectiveness of propaganda both in our contemporary world and even among those suffering directly under foreign occupation. In the contemporary world, our schools portray Rome as somehow benign and beneficial to the occupied. In doing so, our teachers forget the telling words of the Briton insurgent, Calgacus (as recorded by Tacitus). Calgacus reportedly said “ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant.” (They create a desert and call it peace.) The Romans were brutal.

According to “Life of Brian,” that propaganda’s effectiveness was accepted even by those directly experiencing the brutality. In one memorable scene, a resistance leader gives a speech whose central question asks, “What have the Romans ever done for us?”

In response the leader’s audience end up listing one after another, benefits such as sanitation, the aqueducts, education, safe streets, wine, and peace. In so doing, they put the leader to shame. He must admit such benefits of the Roman Empire.

Forgotten in all of this is that the benefits listed overwhelmingly belonged to the imperial center, Rome itself, and typically not to remote and “backward” provinces. The Romans weren’t interested in educating Jewish provincials. Any roads they built were meant to ensure quick passage by Roman Legions responding to outbreaks of Jewish rebellion.

Above all, Jews could hardly consider streets patrolled by Roman occupiers as somehow “safe.” Nor could they consider their occupiers as bringers of peace. Again, the Romans had no respect for Jewish life. Recall that in the end (70 CE) the Romans absolutely wiped Jerusalem and its temple off the map. They killed more than a million Jews and enslaved 97,000 more. Safe streets for Jews was not high on their list of priorities. What the Romans called peace was the tranquility of the graveyard.

Imperialism in Contemporary Israel

Figures like the ones just cited remind one of the brutalities of today’s Zionist occupiers of Palestinian territory. In a few short weeks since October 7, 2023, the settler-colonialists have slaughtered more than 14,000 Palestinians – half of them children, women, and the elderly.

At the same time, forgotten in all of this is the history of Israel’s “creation” of Hamas as a force against other Palestinian resistance movements such as Hezbollah and al Fatah. Yes, by all accounts, Hamas is a Zionist product. It represents their implementation of Rome’s infamous “divide and rule” strategy.

Similarly, Zionist propaganda has persuaded many beyond Palestine of the following absurdities, viz., that:

Zionists illegally occupying Palestinian territories have the right to self-defense. As illegal occupiers, they do not.
Meanwhile, those illegally occupied do not have the right to self-defense. UN Charter Article 51 says they do.
We should unquestioningly believe Zionist accounts of Hamas’ attacks on Jewish settlements on October 7^th, 2023, even if the only sources of those accounts are Israeli officials who have repeatedly lied to us before.
The alleged brutalities of Hamas attacks nullify the application of international law forbidding population transfer, collective punishment, the bombing of hospitals, schools, and United Nations facilities.
Cutting off food, water, and electricity are legitimate military tactics.
All Palestinians (including babies and children) are somehow legitimate targets of Zionist bombs and artillery fire.

Conclusion

After watching Monty Python’s “Life of Brian,” the conclusion I’ve reached is that imperialism is imperialism. On the one hand, it is a system of robbery intended to transfer resources from resource-rich provinces to a resource-poor imperial centers such as Rome. As such, imperialism has no humanitarian intent.

On the other hand, imperialism (like Zionists in Palestine) establishes location in an area rich in resources (like the Middle East floating on its ocean of oil). In the latter case, the purpose is to protect the resource in question from control by those to whom the resource belongs (viz., the Arab nations).

The imperial tactics that ensure such resource transfer and control are those depicted in “Life of Brian.” They involve setting resistance movements against one another and spreading propaganda that has the rest of us (and even some of the colonized) believing that the oppressors are world benefactors, and that their indigenous opponents are somehow terrorists.

As I see it, “Life of Brian” should awaken viewers to such absurdities.

Simply put, empire is empire. Robbery is robbery. Propaganda is propaganda.

The film warns us: open your eyes; identify your real enemies; don’t believe the lies.

Xi Jinping To Biden: You Can Do Multipolarity The Hard Way or the Easy Way; It’s Your Choice!

Readings for the 33^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Proverbs 31: 10-13, 19-20, 30-31; Psalms 128: 1-5; 1^st Thessalonians 5: 1-6; Matthew 25: 14-3

What do you do about an economic system you no longer believe in? What if it’s just interested in the monetary bottom line – making money without doing any real work. What if it shows no concern for women and their children?

Do you simply go along with something like that?

The readings for this Sunday show that it’s an age-old question.

Last week’s meeting between Joe Biden and China’s president, Xi Jinping raised it again.

Let me show you what I mean.

Biden Meets Xi

So, they finally met. Xi Jinping and old man Biden in San Francisco. That happened last Thursday at the insistent request of U.S. president’s team.

According to Alexander Mercouris, Xi showed up on his own terms predetermining where the summit would take place, making sure the streets would be cleaned up, and that there would be no anti-China demonstrations. China also set the meeting’s agenda.

Before that, however, the Chinese president gave two speeches to high level representatives of the U.S. business community, including Elon Musk and Bridgewater CEO, Ray Dalio. At both, he received standing ovations for saying that China’s doors are open for mutually beneficial business deals.

And the point of those agreements would not be to advance “America First,” or “China First” agendas, but to benefit everyone on the planet – prioritizing women and children.

China’s system, Xi implied, is not about favoring the wealthy according to some trickle-down theory. It’s about improving the lives of everyone, beginning with the least – as shown by China’s elimination of extreme poverty in its own context.

Perhaps despite all that, the U.S. business community liked what it heard. Again, those standing ovations. It likes Xi. It knows which side its own bread is buttered on.

But then came Xi’s meeting with Biden. What happened there?

Well, according to the Chinese readout as summarized by Mercouris, President Xi gave our old man a stern lecture.

America and China are at an unprecedented crossroads, Xi said. The U.S. can either take the path of cooperation or of opposition. The choice is up to America since it’s responsible for most of the world’s turmoil. Its response to virtually every problem is military.

According to Xi, choosing cooperation will help both countries prosper and the entire world as well. The path of opposition promises to end in tragedy for everyone.

China has its own problems, Xi went on. It has no desire to replace America as world hegemon. However, in our planet’s new multi-polar context, it will not abide U.S. interference in China’s internal affairs.

For instance, tensions between China and Taiwan will inevitably be resolved according to their shared timetable. The U.S. should therefore stop arms shipments to Taiwan. The latter is, after all, recognized as part of China by the State Department itself. Trying to further widen any gap between Taiwan and China promises those tragic consequences that Xi had referenced earlier.

And what was old man Biden’s response?

Platitudes and false smiles. Nothing about lifting sanctions or cancelling plans for more arms shipments to Taiwan. Just something about American and Chinese military officials maintaining communication and vague references to cooperation on climate change.

Then, after marveling at the luxurious design of Xi’s Chinese-made limousine, Biden bid his counterpart adieu smiling broadly. As Xi’s car drove away, the old man gave a triumphant fist pump as if he had accomplished something significant.

Subsequently, “our leader” convened a brief press conference where he promptly dismissed Xi as a “dictator.”

So much for diplomacy, not to mention maturity – from an octogenarian!

Today’s Readings

To repeat: I bring all of that up because today’s readings centralize something like the choice Xi Jinping described – between on the one hand something like the American hard, unfeeling exploitative economic system where the rich reap where they did not sow and on the other hand, a system like China’s that takes care of women and children.

That is, according to today’s liturgy of the word, prioritizing human need entails centralizing the role of women. Meanwhile, systems that primarily serve the rich are condemned in Jesus’ famous Parable of the Talents.

See for yourself. Here are my “translations” of today’s readings. You can find the originals here.

Proverbs 31: 10-13, 19-20, 30-31

Deeply centered women are the anchors of the world – far more than the superficially beautiful and apparently charming. The value of virtuous women is beyond precious jewels. They not only benefit their own families with food and clothing; they also recognize and share what they have with the marginalized and poor. In fact, homemakers should be paid for housework and given high positions in government.

Psalms 128: 1-5

Whether they know it or not, such women and those they care for are blessed. They are following the Divine Mother’s path. The gardens they cultivate (actual and metaphorical) overflow with rich foods. Face it: they are responsible for the very continuance and prosperity of humanity. The men in their lives should honor them accordingly.

I Thessalonians 5: 1-6

In fact, women’s pregnancy processes provide an apt image for the Divine Mother’s New World that we all anticipate. The enlightened among us (as opposed to those living in darkness) can already feel that the labor pangs are about to begin. Alert and clear-headed, the light-bearers stand ready like midwives to assist in the birthing.

Matthew 25: 14-30

Such assistance in service of our Mother’s New Reality calls for departure from business as usual – from a system that rewards the 1% who do no actual work, but who rely on investments that end up enriching the already affluent while further impoverishing and punishing the poor and exploited.

Parable of the Talents

As I was saying, the readings just reviewed are about economic systems – one that treats its beneficiaries like the family they are, the other that prioritizes money and profit. The first three readings from Proverbs, Psalms and 1^st Thessalonians reflect the values of a tribal culture where women’s productive capacity was still highly valued.

On the other hand, Jesus’ Parable of the Talents centers on the male world of investment and profit-taking without real work. In the end, the story celebrates dropping out and refusing to cooperate with the dynamics of finance, interest, and exploitation of the working class.

Taken together, the readings put one in mind of the contrast between China’s more people-oriented economy over against the U.S. exclusively profit-oriented system.

More specifically, Jesus’ parable contrasts obedient conformists with counter-cultural rebellion like the one embodied in Xi Jinping’s “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” The former invest in an economic system embodied in their boss – “a demanding person” the parable laments, “harvesting where he did not plant and gathering where he did not scatter.”

In other words, like neo-liberal capitalism itself, the boss is a hard-ass S.O.B. who lives off the work of poor women farmers like those celebrated in the Proverbs selection. The conformists go along with that system to which they can imagine no acceptable alternative.

Accordingly, the servant who is entrusted with five talents (more than 2 million dollars!) gains 2 million more and the one given two talents doubles his money as well.

Meanwhile, the non-conformist hero of the parable (like China) refuses to adopt a system where, as Jesus puts it, “everyone who has is given more so that they grow rich, while the have-nots are robbed even of what they have.”

Because of his decision to drop out, the rebel suffers predictable consequences. Like Jesus and his mentor, John the Baptist, the non-conformist is marginalized into an exterior darkness which the rich see as bleak and tearful (a place of “weeping and grinding of teeth”).

However, Jesus promises that exile from the system of oppression represents a first step towards the inauguration of the very Kingdom of God. It is filled with light and joy.

Conclusion

China has taken more than that first step. It has rejected the U.S. model of world hegemony in favor of a multi-polar world.

If you don’t believe that, just think of China’s elimination of extreme poverty for almost a billion human souls. Its Belt and Road Initiative (now enrolling at least 150 countries) is a model of what the U.S. used to celebrate as “foreign aid,” but without strings attached or connection to regime change.

And all of this as well without juvenile fist pumps, name-calling, or sanctions that expel the disobedient into that darkness outside with its wailing and grinding of teeth.

Yes, we need a change of economic systems – and of leadership that shows the maturity, patience, and diplomacy of Xi Jinping.

Scott Ritter, Hamas, Terrorism, & the Judeo-Christian Tradition

Readings for the 31^st Sunday in Ordinary Time: Malachi 1: 14b-2: 2b, 8-10; Psalm 131: 1-3; 1 Thessalonians 2: 7b-9, 13; Matthew 23: 1-12

The liturgical readings for this 31^st Sunday in Ordinary Time are about the hypocrisy of national “leaders” who bring disgrace to their office and who become for their people a curse rather than a blessing.

They pretend to know more than the ones they “serve.” As a result, though they might say the right words about freedom, peace, and even “God,” every action they perform contradicts the basic divine imperative (found in all the world’s Great Religions) to treat others as we would like to be treated.

Consequently, the only policy these hypocrites know is war. In Israel-Palestine, they supply weapons to kill women and children (centralized in today’s readings) and they prefer continued slaughter to cease-fires.

Religious pretenders all, they disgrace themselves before the world’s poor majorities who know exactly what lawless settler-colonialists (and their facilitators) are always about. As Haitian film maker, Raul Peck has shown, they’re always about ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, and outright extermination. Always!

Today, the whole world is watching the script unfold once again in Apartheid-Israel.

A Pro-Palestinian Demonstration

All of that was brought home to me two weeks ago when I attended a pro-Palestinian rally in New Haven, Connecticut near the Yale campus.

By my estimate the highly enthusiastic crowd that gathered there numbered between 2000 and 3000 people. We marched from the New Haven Green through the town’s center chanting slogans like “Free, free, free. . . free Palestine!” The whole experience was highly inspiring.

The signs people carried were inspiring too and very thought-provoking. One caught my eye more than others. It made me think more deeply about Hamas. It caused me to realize that contrary to acceptable opinion in the United States, Hamas is not “pure unadulterated evil” (as our confused president’s handlers made him say). Neither is it simply a “terrorist organization.”

The sign I’m referring to read “OCT. 7 IS AN OUTCOME NOT A TRIGGER.”

I took that to mean “IF YOU PUT HAMAS’ ‘TERRORIST’ ATTACKS IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT, THEY BECOME FAR MORE UNDERSTANDABLE THAN THE MUCH WORSE APARTHEID-ISRAELI RESPONSE TO THE HORRIFIC EVENTS OF OCT. 7^TH.”

So, before we get to this Sunday’s readings, let’s once again think more deeply about Hamas. This time, my guide will be Scott Ritter, the former weapons inspector in Iraq who tried to tell our government that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. He was relieved of his post as a result. As usual, the White House and Congress preferred lie to truth.

Hamas

According to Ritter, Hamas is not a terrorist organization. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the President of Turkey, a NATO member, agrees.

For Ritter, Hamas is no more terroristic than were Americans like Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty whom the British called “terrorists” during the Revolutionary War.

Hamas, he says, is also no more terroristic than was Menachem Begin, the future Israeli Prime Minister. Back in 1946, Begin headed the Zionist Irgun gang which set off explosives in the King David Hotel, killing 91 people and injuring 45 including women and children. (Later, invading Israeli settlers ended up killing 15,000 Palestinians whose homes and other property they stole outright.) Begin’s goal in that strike against Great Britain was to bring international attention to the Zionist campaign for a Jewish homeland.

Seeking similar international attention for the largely ignored Palestinian cause, Hamas has at succeeded in putting Palestinian statehood back on the table. According to Ritter, its bold action has shaken up a calcified, Zionist-and-American-dominated Middle East.

In that sense, October 7^th was highly successful and a game changer. In fact, it eliminated the principal obstacle to peace in the Middle East – Israel’s opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state. Simultaneously, by provoking a predictable overreaction by Apartheid-Israel, Hamas has succeeded in turning a global majority against the Zionists.

In Ritter’s eyes, rather than an act of terrorism, October 7^th was a brilliantly planned military assault carried out with far more precision and far less collateral damage than what we witness Israel doing now.

The former U.S. Marine analyst points out that such observations are supported by the testimony of Kibbutzim survivors of the Oct. 7^th Hamas attacks. The survivors claimed that it the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were responsible for most of the casualties falsely attributed to Hamas. The IDF’s indiscriminate fire killed large numbers caught in crossfire between the Hamas cadres and the IDF.

Ritter concludes with a probing question. If you’re against Hamas’ tactics, he asks, tell me what you would do as an alternative. Gazan resisters have tried non-violent approaches with the First Intifada (1987-1993) and Second Intifada (2000) and in the Great March of Return in 2018. The demonstrations achieved virtually nothing for the Palestinians on Israel-Palestine’s West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Instead, direct action by Palestinians saw hundreds of peaceful protestors killed and maimed by Israeli snipers. Very few in the West remember that, even if they were aware of their implementation at the time.

Such failures have heightened despair, desperation, and anger in the Gazan concentration camp. Every Gazan man, Ritter claims, wakes up each morning with one thought in mind. Perhaps like Jews in Auschwitz, he thinks of the Israeli concentration camp guards and wonders, “How can I hurt them today?”

Such desperation led to the desperate acts of October 7^th.

If any of us were forced to live under similar circumstances, Ritter concludes, we’d likely be thinking the same way. With Patrick Henry’s famous words in mind, he speculates that if you asked Gazans if they would give their lives to free their people, most of them would probably reply affirmatively. For this reason, Hamas communiques refer to the thousands and thousands of victims of Apartheid-Israel’s terrorism as “martyrs.”

Today’s Readings

Please keep all of that in mind as you read this Sunday’s liturgical selections. I’ve “translated” them below. You can read the originals here to see if I got them right.

Malachi 1: 14b-2: 2b, 8-10

The Great Goddess promised Jewish priests that they and their people will be cursed if they forgot the nature of Mosaic Covenant. It was forged to protect slaves escaped from Egypt – to protect the poor and powerless. Priestly hypocrisy, She promised, transforms into curses any “holy words” uttered to bless Israel. The whole people suffers when official decisions favor the rich instead of God’s impoverished and oppressed. After all, everyone without exception has dignity in the eyes of the One Creator. Ignoring that simple fact violates the essence of God’s Law.

Psalm 131: 1-3

Favoring the poor is the key to peace. That however is something the rich cannot see as they concern themselves with their “great things” and their “sublime” matters which they deem beyond the ken of the poor majority. But even a still and quiet child on its mothers lap exhibits more wisdom than the haughty. What children embody gives hope for peace.

1 Thessalonians 2: 7b-9, 13

The apostle Paul understood that truth. He went even further. For him nursing mothers offered lessons about generosity and self-giving. They embodied the love of our Great Mother. Accepting that helped Paul see everyone as a sister or brother worthy of his service and hard work. His vision enabled him to communicate the very word of the Great Goddess to any who cared to listen.

Matthew 23: 1-12

That’s what Yeshua did too. He understood the power of the Mosaic tradition about the liberation of the oppressed. However, he also saw that the politico-religious “leaders” of his day were hypocrites. They said the right words, but never lived them. Rather than bringing the “Good News” of God’s peace and love, their laws and policies made matters worse for the poor. Their concern was not that of the Great Mother, but with retaining personal power, profit, pleasure, and prestige. “Don’t be like that,” Yeshua said. Consider no one your Master, no one your Father. Instead, be humble and serve. Think for yourselves!

Conclusion

Those words speak for themselves. Like the ancient Jews, we’re led by hypocrites and liars. They should not be our masters. Though old and feeble, they are not our fathers. They are worthy of contempt and curses.

Far from embodying the Golden Rule, their guideline seems to be lawlessness, revenge, extermination, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Don’t be like them, Yeshua says. Their actions speak louder than their lying words.