Emeritus professor of Peace & Social Justice Studies. Liberation theologian. Activist. Former R.C. priest. Married for 48 years. Three grown children. Eight grandchildren.
Happy New Year to everyone. The last four years (with COVID and all) have been rough.
Let’s hope that 2024 will be better, despite the continued war in Ukraine and the horrific and ongoing genocide in Gaza. But before I get to that, let me share a personal note about my own privileged life.
I’m writing from Clearwater Beach Florida, where Peggy and I arrived last Saturday (December 30th). Like so many retirees, we’re seeking refuge from winter weather, and we find Clearwater to our liking. For a fourth or fifth year, we’re renting in a 10-story high-rise condo complex on a beautiful beach comfortably far from the honky tonk part of this small town. We’re about a mile’s walk from a state park called “Honeymoon Island.”
As some may have noticed, my blogging has been spotty lately. That’s largely because I’ve been recovering from knee replacement surgery which I underwent on November 8th. Recovery has been rapid for me. In fact, my replaced left knee now feels better than my right knee, which I intend to undergo an identical procedure sometime in April.
Peggy also had a knee replaced – about five weeks before my procedure. So, we’ve been busy helping each other convalesce. You know what they say: “A couple that has surgery together. . ..”
So much for such medical issues that I find myself talking about much more than I should.
Now, what about this New Year?
Sorry: my reflections are not happy. In fact:
I even find it hard to say the words “Happy new year!”
Don’t you?
I can’t stop thinking about the thousands and thousands of children, women, and old people being mercilessly slaughtered by the genocidal Zionists.
Or about the one many now refer to as “Genocide Joe” for his arming and otherwise supporting the Israeli war criminals. Who could vote for such a demon?
More than 22,000 massacred so far.
Again, more than half children, women, and old people.
I dreamt about them last night.
I’m wondering why the Pope and other religious leaders have not been more outspoken denouncing apartheid Israel’s atrocities that include collective punishment, population transfer, starvation, water deprivation, unrelenting attacks on hospitals, ambulances, schools, UN facilities, and members of the press.
Every item on that list is a war crime.
Where in all of this is “Love your enemies,” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” “Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me”?
It’s such a disgrace. It makes me wonder about the value of religion at all.
I’m also scandalized by the way war has become such a central part of U.S. policy. It’s now a first resort instead of a last one. And somehow, we all accept that as normal.
I mean our “leaders” now talk casually about use of nuclear weapons, and about war with Iran and China.
What for?
No thought of diplomacy. It’s simply a lost art.
And what about the U.S. with 4.2% of the world’s population overriding the expressed desire of virtually the entire world to simply stop the killing in Gaza?
Reluctance to call for a cease fire? What’s that about?
And did you see that Brown University report that since 2001, the United States has been responsible for as many as 4.5-4.7 million deaths in the war zones it has created?
And that’s just since 2001. Millions and millions before that!
Are we and the other colonial powers any better than the Nazis?
It’s hard not to draw the conclusion that “our” government (like Israel’s) is simply a criminal enterprise much, much worse than any Mafia you care to imagine.
That’s our tax dollars at work.
That’s us!
That’s U.S.
The only hopeful thing I can think of in this desperate situation is that THE TRUTH IS COMING OUT:
We are not the world’s good guys.
Quite the opposite.
Now the whole world unmistakably sees us for who we are.
The undeniable evidence is there in the ruins of Gaza.
In those piles of dead Palestinian babies, their mothers, and grandparents.
We are exactly in the position to which Adolph Hitler aspired.
The irony is that our Zionist allies are now the genociders and so are we and the collective West.
Our country is genocidal.
We’re basically white European colonizers who believe in our racial superiority and with less than 15% of the world’s population want to control the other 85%.
It looks like Hitler won that war, doesn’t it?
Fanon‘s Wretched of the Earth are now rising up to reverse his victory.
Last week, Christian church leaders in the city of Bethlehem announced the cancellation of traditional Christmas festivities in the place traditionally associated with the Jesus’ birth.
And this for at least two obvious reasons. For one, the genocidal killings by colonial settlers in Palestine’s occupied West Bank have made it impossible for tourists to come to Bethlehem.
For another, Palestinian residents of Bethlehem have themselves cancelled festivities in an act of solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Gaza victimized by Apartheid Zionists and their partners in genocide, the United States of America.
But there’s a third reason as well – a theological one that needs highlighting this Christmas weekend.
The motive was explained last Friday on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now.” Ms. Goodman began with a clip of the Reverend Isaac Munther, a Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem.
Standing before a nativity scene with the figure of Jesus in a keffiyeh surrounded by rubble, Rev. Munther said:
“Christmas is a ray of light and hope from the heart of pain and suffering. Christmas is the radiance of life from the heart of destruction and death. In Gaza, God is under the rubble. He is in the operating room. If Christ were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble. I invite you to see the image of Jesus in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble, in every child struggling for life in destroyed hospitals, in every child in incubators. Christmas celebrations are canceled this year, but Christmas itself is not and will not be canceled, for our hope cannot be canceled.”
Elaborating on that theme, Reverend Mitri Raheb, the president of Bethlehem’s Dar al-Kalima University, offered an explanation that echoed the liberation theology perspective on Palestine that my wife and I encountered in the summer of 2006, when we visited the Sabeel Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem.
Dr. Raheb is the author of a book with a revealing title, Decolonizing Palestine: the Land, the People, the Bible. Here’s what he said:
“The Christmas story actually is a Palestinian story, par excellence. It talks about a family in Nazareth, in the north of Palestine, that is ordered by an imperial decree of the Romans to evacuate to Bethlehem, to go there and register. And this is exactly what our people in Gaza has been experiencing these 75 days. It talks about Mary, the pregnant woman, on the run, exactly like 50,000 women in Gaza who are actually displaced. Jesus was born actually as a refugee. There was no place at the inn for him to be born, so he was put in a manger. And this is exactly what also the kids that are coming to life these days in Gaza are experiencing. You know, most of the hospitals are damaged, out of service, and so there is no delivery places for all of these pregnant women in Gaza. And then you have the bloodthirsty Herod that ordered to kill the kids in Bethlehem to stay in power. And in Gaza, over 8,000 kids, they have been murdered for Netanyahu to stay in power.
And you have this message that the angels declared here, “Glory to God in the highest, peace on Earth,” which was actually a critique of the empire, because glory belongs to the Almighty and not to the mighty. And the peace that Jesus came to proclaim is not the peace, the Pax Romana, the peace that is based on subjugation and military operation, but on human dignity, equality and justice. And this is actually what we call for. And I have to say I find it really a shame that in this season, where every church hears these words, “peace on Earth,” that the United States is vetoing even a ceasefire. It’s a shame.”
Readings for the Third Sunday of Advent:Isaiah 61: 1-2A, 10-11; Luke 1: 46-48, 49-50, 53-54; 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24; John 1: 6-8, 19-28.
Last week, Americans were treated to a high-level display of hypocrisy, double standards, and pure ignorance regarding higher learning. The spectacle occurred during a House Education Committee hearing about on-campus demonstrations supporting Palestinians in Gaza.
The procedure raised questions not only about alleged anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, but also about the very purpose of higher education.
For me in the context of biblical readings for this third Sunday of Advent, the hearing also touched issues of faith and its dictates regarding the conflict in Gaza. As we’ll see, today’s readings suggest that Christians should stand with Palestinians in their conflict with an Apartheid state turned genocidal – and against the United States now unquestionably revealed (in the words of Scott Ritter) as “the world’s bad guy.”
Let me deal with each of those points successively.
The Hearing & Anti-Semitism
During the hearing just referenced, rightwing congress member Elise Stefanik (R NY) grilled Harvard president Claudine Gay, her MIT counterpart Sally Kornbluth, and University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill about allowing pro-Palestinian demonstrations on their campuses.
According to Ms. Stefanik, the demonstrations ran the danger of threatening pro-Zionist students.
Ignoring her own history of alleged anti-Semitic positions as well as her votes funding the Zionist genocide of Gazans, the congresswoman’s questioning deceptively linked the term “intifada” to advocacy of extermination of Jews.
Similarly ignoring Zionist claims to “Greater Israel” extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, the congresswoman’s questioning implied that any use of the phrase “from the River to the Sea” uniquely threatened Jewish students. Clearly, Congresswoman Stefanik, along with many Democrats, was anxious to restrict pro-Palestinian speech on Campus.
For their part, the university presidents at last week’s hearing were correspondingly anxious to protect first amendment guarantees on their campuses in today’s context where any talk of Palestinian rights is interpreted as anti-Semitic.
The whole affair had commentators like Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, viewing the presidents’ grilling and its fallout as an attempt by champions of Zionism to distract from actual genocide (of Palestinians in Gaza) while centralizing highly marginal hypothetical speech about repeating Hitler’s horrendous genocide of Jews.
Meanwhile, right-wing commentators on Fox News offered outright condemnation of the three women presidents’ unwillingness to give a simple “yes” or “no” answer to loaded questions about a complex constitutional issue of free speech.
According to Bill Bennett, the former Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan, the whole affair illustrated, how American education at all levels has declined into what some have called “cesspools of liberal propaganda.”
Education’s Purpose
All this raises questions about the purpose of education in general and of higher education in particular. What is it for?
What do you think?
The relatively new prevailing answer equates the university’s function with pre-professional training. If courses don’t directly prepare students for “the world of work,” they’re a waste of time.
That approach, of course, discards traditional approaches to learning in general as preparation for living meaningful lives that transcend considerations of jobs and income in favor of free discussion and representation of all points of view – even those advocating genocide.
This more traditional approach unabashedly believes that free speech and debate will broaden students’ horizons. And doing so will inevitably challenge students to move from positions of egocentrism and ethnocentrism, from narrow tribalism and patriotism to something like world-centrism and even to cosmic consciousness.
In fact, many educators (like me) would say that’s the whole purpose of education – to help students and professors grow beyond egocentrism and ethnocentrism towards world centrism (where all humans are seen as brothers and sisters) and even to the mystical viewpoint that concludes “there is really only one of us here.”
In fact, reaching that cosmic vision is arguably the whole purpose of life. At least that seemed to be the position of all the world’s great religious traditions including their Judeo-Christian branch. Reaching that point of course would automatically exclude wars of any kind on the grounds that they are all suicidal.
Today’s Readings
And that brings me to the biblical selections for this third Sunday of Advent. Transcending even academic “objectivity,” today’s passages call us to take sides. They call us to side with the Palestinians against their apartheid colonial butchers.
For the readings reveal what scripture scholars call our Great Mother-Father God’s “preferential option for the poor.” They reveal that the Great Spirits themselves take sides. They demand justice for the poor (like the children of Gaza and their mothers) in their struggle against the rich [like the Apartheid Zionists and their genocidal IDF with its (U.S.-supplied) planes, bombs, missiles, and tanks].
Let me show you what I mean by “translating” today’s liturgical selections. Please read the originals here to see if I got them right.
Isaiah 61: 1-2A, 10-11
If you’re possessed by the Holy Spirit, if you have Christ consciousness, you must imitate the Great Mother herself. You must make a “preferential option for the poor.” It prioritizes healing hearts broken by imperial powers. Begin by recognizing the fact that poverty and debt render the poor hostages and prisoners of the rich. However, just like the wealthy, poor husbands and their brides deserve their own sparkling jewels. Put otherwise, wealth redistribution is a simple matter of divine justice which imitates the abundance and generosity of Nature herself.
Luke 1: 46-48, 49-50, 53-54
Yeshua’s mother recognized all this. Myriam was a poor peasant herself. And yet she, rather than some rich woman, was chosen as the mother of the long-awaited Messiah. So, she militantly praised the Divine One for feeding the hungry while specifically rejecting the rich. She glorified the Great Source for standing with Myriam’s people when they were unjustly occupied by imperial Rome.
1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24
Paul of Tarsus experienced Myriam’s consciousness as well. It expressed, he said, the Spirit of Yeshua himself whose prophetic program was identical with Isaiah’s (Luke 4:18). Yes, Paul said, Yeshua’s “preferential option for the poor” represents the criterion separating authentic interpretations of the Lord’s message from those of deceptive charlatans. The latter “solve” problems by war, rather than by peace which respects soul, body, spirit, and the absolute integrity of human community.
Isaiah 61:1
Lest you forget, we repeat: Christ’s Good News is addressed primarily to the poor, not the rich.
John 1: 6-8, 19-28
That’s what John the Baptizer recognized too. He was poor people’s alternative High Priest. His Temple was the Jordan’s wilderness, not Herod’s urban Temple. Yet, neither John, nor Elijah before him, nor any of the great prophets was anywhere near as radical as Yeshua. John merely baptized with water; Yeshua, his disciple, would administer a baptism that conferred the very Spirit of God – the fiery Spirit that preferred the poor to the rich.
Conclusion
Like secular universities, religious people within the Judeo-Christian tradition should never censor free speech. That’s because good-willed people hold all kinds of opinions. Even advocates of genocide deserve places at the table, in congressional hearings, at teach-ins, discussion groups, and bull sessions. Our Constitution’s First Amendment (every bit as important as the Second) demands that.
But today’s readings invite subscribers to the Judeo-Christian tradition to go further still. They summon followers of Isaiah, Myriam, Paul, and Yeshua to stand with the poor and powerless – with victims of empire and colonialism. The readings urge adoption of the divine “preferential option for the poor” by imagining what today is impossible, but as our aspirational North Star. And that means standing with Gazans against their genocidal oppressors.
To me at least, that further means:
Getting informed about the tragedy unfolding before our eyes.
Recognizing and naming the crime of genocide even when its perpetrators were once victims of genocide themselves.
Denouncing all violations of international law as such including indiscriminate attacks upon and wholesale slaughter of children, women, and the elderly.
Also including policies of collective punishment, carpet bombing, destructions of medical facilities, use of chemical weapons (such as white phosphorous) and assassinations of teachers, doctors, and members of the press.
Identifying “national leaders” like Israel’s Netanyahu and U.S. “Genocide Joe Biden” as international criminals.
Calling for the latter’s arrest and trial by the international court. (If that can be done for Russia’s President Putin for much lesser crimes, why not for Netanyahu and “Genocide Joe?”)
Similarly identifying Apartheid Israel and its enabler the United States of America as criminal nations.
Calling for their expulsion from a restructured United Nations that strips a nation representing 4.2% of the world’s population from overriding the will of the overwhelming majority of the U.N.’s membership.
I just reread George Orwell’s Animal Farm. That was because I was trying to help my 11-year-old grandson understand the “isms” portrayed in the book, which his class has been assigned for reading and discussion. I’m talking about Marxism, communism, capitalism, socialism, mixed economy, and fascism. They’re all there. And at its early stage of development, my grandson’s class is trying to understand what those terms mean with the aid of Orwell’s allegory.
So, let me try to explain them one-by-one, and then draw some simple conclusions about Orlando’s Orwellian project.
Economic Systems
To begin with, Marxism (simply defined as the philosophy of Karl Marx), hangs over the book like the specter he and Friedrich Engels warn about in the first line of their “Communist Manifesto.” That philosophy holds that (1) capitalism necessarily exploits the working class and the natural environment, (2) workers will rebel against such exploitation substituting socialism for capitalism, and (3) socialism will eventually evolve into communism.
That’s the basic story of the animal farm allegory. A drunken Farmer Jones runs Manor Farm without concern for the pigs, horses, donkeys, chickens, cows, ducks, dogs, cats, and even rats. All the latter live under the capitalist system with its (1) private ownership of the means of production (Manor Farm itself), (2) free and open markets (where eggs and milk are sold), and (3) unlimited earnings (all horded by Farmer Jones). Under that arrangement, Jones gets rich while the animals find themselves overworked, underfed, and highly resentful.
So, they revolt against their master and take over his farm, even changing its name from Manor Farm to Animal Farm. They replace Farmer Jones’ capitalism with socialism which is the exact opposite of capitalism. It’s about (1) public (i.e. community) ownership of the means of production, (2) controlled markets, and (3) earnings limited by considerations of human welfare – reinvesting profits above that into improving community life.
At least in the beginning, all that works out quite well because the animals are guided by a “North Star” ideal called communism (expressed in their popular anthem “Beasts of England”). Communism is an unrealizable ideal (like the Kingdom of God) that guides the planning of socialists. It shoots for (1) abundance for all, (2) consequent elimination of economic classes, and (3) no need for a state (i.e. for a central authority to impose on entire communities the will of the dominant class, be it capitalists or workers).
Eventually however, the Animal Farm project finds itself threatened by a counter-revolution led by Farmer Jones and his fellow capitalists who want to reverse the gains of the animals’ socialism and reclaim their lost private property. Together the dispossessed capitalists launch violent attacks on the socialist experiment. They kill and maim the Farm residents. They destroy their infrastructure (most notably a windmill that would provide electricity for Animal Farm giving workers there with more leisure, light, warmth, and power for labor-saving machinery).
Eventually too, the leadership of the commune realizes that it needs goods and services that it cannot provide for itself, such as iron, nails, and paraffin oil. This realization causes the community to move from a socialist economy to a mixed economy. Mixed economies combine the best features of capitalism and socialism. They incorporate (1) some private ownership and some public ownership of means of production, (2) some free markets and some controlled exchanges, and (3) earnings which though limited allow capitalists to earn profit.
For a while, this new system works. However, Animal Farm leadership becomes so comfortable with their former sworn enemies (the capitalists led by the lawyer, Mr. Whymper) that the community governors gradually identify more with their outside trading partners than with the Animal Farm community. They end up dressing like the capitalists and adopting their ways (such as drinking previously forbidden alcohol, sleeping in luxurious beds, excluding animals from their meetings, and adopting the practice of capital punishment).
All of this enrages Animal Farm residents not only against the capitalists, but against their own increasingly repressive leadership. Rebellion simmers once again on the farm. The capitalists and their Animal Farm allies feel threatened causing them to institute a system of fascism (i.e., capitalism in crisis featuring a union of interest and policy between government and capitalists). Fascism might be defined as (1) capitalism in crisis, (2) forced on resentful workers by a police state and (3) blaming the system’s dysfunctions on “the usual suspects,” viz., communists, socialists, Jews, non-whites, immigrants, and sexual “deviants.” In the case of Animal Farm, Snowball the Pig is a stand-in for all the latter. He’s blamed for everything!
Conclusion
So, what’s the bottom line of Animal Farm? Many see it as a diatribe against socialism and communism illustrating the old saw: “Communism is great in theory, but it doesn’t work in practice.”
Perhaps more discerning conclusions would be that:
The book illustrates the clear superiority of socialism over capitalism. The animals were much happier under communal ownership of the means of production than under Farmer Jones.
However, capitalists do not give up easily. They inevitably launch counter revolutions involving mayhem, murder, and cynical property destruction – all aimed at making workers dissatisfied with their new situation.
Capitalists can also buy off socialist leaders with money, gifts, prestige, and privilege causing them to identify more with their former enemies than with the people they are supposed to serve.
Revolution is not a one-off affair. It is a constant process always in need of periodic renewal.
Or as Thomas Jefferson put it: “Every generation needs a new revolution.”
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’sZealot), 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 7th, 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.
Readings for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Proverbs 31: 10-13, 19-20, 30-31; Psalms 128: 1-5; 1st 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 1st 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.
Readings for the 31st 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 31st 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. 7TH.”
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 7th 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 7th 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. 7th 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 7th.
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.
Yes, thank God for Hamas. At least that’s what I’m thinking. Hamas could be the unlikely agent of God’s revelation.
That Hamas possesses such agency seems likely in the light of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions in general and in that of the liturgical readings for this Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. All three can enable discerning people of faith to see past western propaganda to what Hamas is actually up to. Hamas is lifting the veil to help us identify who’s responsible for most of the world’s problems. It’s the United States and Israel. Both represent brutal criminal enterprises.
That’s my two-point message for today. it’s one that we’d do well to let into our consciousness blinded by nonstop propaganda that hates Muslims and the poor, that hates non-whites, and those who dare to defend themselves against imperialists, colonialists, and racists.
So, don’t expect here the de rigueur denunciation of Hamas’ “atrocities.” In terms of freedom and justice for Palestine’s oppressed, that requirement is deceptively counterproductive. It creates a detestable false equivalency between the tactics of resistance fighters on the one hand and the infinitely worse barbarisms of their overlords on the other. Once again, it ends up justifying Israel’s slaughter of their concentration camp captives.
[By the way, Pakistan’s UN ambassador, Munir Akram, recently said something like that to the General Assembly. He refused to criticize Hamas unless Israel was also criticized as the root cause of the crisis in Israel-Palestine. But, of course, the U.S. and Israel refused to allow such critique. (Be sure to view Akram’s speech above.)]
No, my points for us living within a nearly impenetrable “veil of ignorance” are to affirm that (1) Hamas may well be the agent of God’s revelation, and (2) the scriptural traditions of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions suggest that strongly.
Hamas
To begin with what do we know of Hamas? I mean, what do we really know that’s not filtered through western (i.e., through imperial and colonial) propaganda machines?
The answer is, “almost nothing!”
Think about it. What we know of Hamas comes from its inveterate enemies. It’s like getting information from the Nazis about Jews in the 1930s. And we fall for it every time. I think Goebbels said something about that.
In other words, our information about Hamas comes from proven compulsive liars (like the colonialist Benjamin Netanyahu, the imperialist Joe Biden, and their lackey press corps). Uniformly, they tell us:
Hamas cadres wantonly killed innocent young people spraying them down with machine gun bullets at a rave dance. (Nothing about crossfire.)
Unlike Apartheid-Israelis who hold more than a thousand Palestinians in custody (often without charge) Hamas has no right to take political prisoners.
After all, hostages and political prisoners are not the same.
Hamas militants even beheaded infants and children. Joe Biden said he saw the photos. (Later, his team “walked that back.”)
They raped women. (No evidence. Again, a claim “walked back.”)
Their rockets, not Apartheid-Israelis, destroyed a Gazan hospital. (Without investigation, Joe Biden believes that too – on the word of the highly principled Benjamin Netanyahu.)
They’re worthy of condemnation because they have chosen violence over the non-violent tactics so obviously favored by virtuous Apartheid-Israelis and Apartheid-Americans. [Nothing about Palestinians’ non-violent “Great March of Return” (2018), Apartheid-Israel’s brutal response killing hundreds, and the general lack of coverage in the west’s mainstream media.]
That’s what we know about Hamas. Am I right or wrong?
And every one of those allegations is a lie or at best a prevarication containing a tiny grain of truth. Every one of them!
I won’t waste my time or yours debunking them one-by-one. You can find that information elsewhere.
Instead, let me tell you briefly what we’re never told about Hamas. (You can find all this on Wikipedia):
To begin with, it is a political organization democratically elected by the people of Gaza in 2006.
It is also a religiously inspired social services collective that funds welfare projects helping people survive the hardships of hostile governments throughout the Middle East.
It represents a kind of Islamic theology of liberation that (in the name of the biblical and Koranic God of the poor) serves the impoverished and embraces the right to revolution recognized by Article 51 of the UN Charter.
For instance, in Gaza, Hamas provides food, water, medical and rent assistance for residents. It funds nurseries, schools, orphanages, soup kitchens, women’s activities, library services, and sporting clubs. That’s the foundation of its popular support.
And, of course, Hamas also has a powerful military wing to defend Gazans from the atrocities that Apartheid-Israelis have routinely inflicted on Palestinians for the last 70 years.
As such, according to international law, it enjoys the legitimacy accorded those resisting illegal occupation by foreign powers. (As illegal occupiers and aggressors, Apartheid-Israelis have no such corresponding rights.)
With all that in mind, Hamas atrocities turn out to be no different (except in their lesser severity) from those of the Apartheid-Israelis which preceded and followed upon them.
In the Palestinian case, they are acts of anger and vengeance for a whole series of brutalities inflicted upon them by their oppressors for the last 70 years. Those acts are far more understandable and justifiable than the acts of Apartheid-Israel that preceded and followed them.
Agent of Revelation
Moreover, (and this is a principal point in this homily) whatever you might think of its tactics today, Hamas is functioning as the agent of God’s revelation as articulated in this Sunday’s readings.
And here I’m using the word “revealing” in its etymological sense – removing the veil.
That is, (according to Scott Ritter ) Hamas has forced Apartheid-Israel and Apartheid-America to show their true colors. As a result, we finally see the blood drenched palette every day on our TVs. Simply put, the colonizer and its imperial sponsor have revealed themselves as brutal reincarnations of that other genocidal European force whose name can barely be printed in the mass media. Apartheid-Israel and Apartheid-America are revealing themselves to be racist, white supremacist, and N*zis.
According to Ritter, such revelation is what Hamas’ strategy is all about. They desperately realized that the settler invasions and occupations of Palestinian lands coupled with Israel’s Abraham Accords with surrounding Arab nations signaled a window closing on any hopes for an independent Palestinian state.
So, Hamas decided to force Israel’s and America’s brutal hands. They took up arms against their concentration camp captors. And the captors reacted in exactly the way Hamas knew they would – by bombing the concentration camp itself. Their keepers responded with wholesale slaughter of women and children – with obvious war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and outright genocide.
And the world finally noticed. The Hamas tactic worked. Everyone (outside the western bubble) now sees Israel and the United States for the criminal enterprises they are.
Both the latter claim to embrace the Judeo-Christian tradition. But nothing could be further from the truth. It’s all hypocrisy.
Just read today’s first selection from the Book of Exodus. It’s so short and to the point that I risk quoting its first paragraph verbatim here:
“Thus says the LORD: ‘You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry. My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans.’” (Ex 22:20-26).
And then there’s today’s Gospel selection from Matthew. Confronting the upperclass Pharisees and Sadducees whom the Jewish Yeshua saw as blaming the victims of the Romans (in the case of the Pharisees) and directly cooperating with their imperial oppressors (in the case of the Sadducees) he reminds them that they must love those they despised. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” he says.
Those words expressed the Christ’s mystic insight that all humans are one single entity. We are all equally “chosen.” We are more than brothers and sisters. Our neighbor is Our Self. In killing Palestinian women and children, elders, teachers, doctors, nurses, first responders – and Hamas supporters – we are committing suicide. We’re killing our common indwelling Spirit.
All that promises to become even more apparent as Israel’s genocide of Palestinians continues while the whole world is watching. The horrific revelation will continue.
Conclusion
So, yes, I’ll dare to say it: thank God for Hamas. Yes, it’s removing our veil of ignorance. In that sense, it is the agent of God’s re-veil-ation. The thousands and thousands Apartheid-Israel is executing before our eyes are martyrs reminiscent of the early Christians. They are revealers too.
The world’s poor, the Global majority living in the West’s former colonies and current neo-colonies see that more clearly than any of us. While Israel and the U.S. scandalously oppose a cease fire, the Global South (i.e., the world’s vast majority) supports it.
It’s far past the time for westerners like us join their chorus demanding that the criminal Apartheid-Israel state and its criminal American counterpart STOP THEIR CRIMINAL OPPRESSION.
Like Scott Ritter, I find myself praying for the complete defeat and humiliation of Apartheid-Israel — and of the United States on every front.
Readings for 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time:Isaiah 45: 1, 4-6; Psalm 96: 1-10; 1st Thessalonians 1: 1-5b; Matthew 22: 15-21
During Apartheid-Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestine, we’re privileged to be confronted each week with readings from the “holy books” of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Muslims of course also consider those sources as divinely revealed.
Since Apartheid-Zionists invoke that shared tradition to justify their policies, let’s examine them closely.
This week’s selections are particularly relevant to the current ongoing slaughter inflicted by Apartheid-Israel because they raise questions concerning God’s so-called “chosen,” and of their relation to imperialism and colonialism – all concepts that figure prominently in what’s unfolding today in Palestine.
The central idea in today’s readings is that those who side with empire cannot pretend to belong to Israel’s God. There can be no dual citizenship simultaneously in empire and God’s Kingdom.
That simple idea applies both to Apartheid-Zionists and their American supporters whose imperial identity and unconditional support for Zionism makes them Apartheid-Americans.
Instead, today’s readings reveal that it is non-Jews who because they liberate captives from empire, qualify as God’s “chosen” – even as messianic.
They are the ones who belong to the Kingdom proclaimed by the Jewish Prophet Yeshua whose program (as he put it) was to bring good news to the poor, sight to the blind, liberty to captives, and a Jubilee Year centralizing debt forgiveness (Luke 4: 18).. Being “chosen” was not a question of ethnicity, he said, but of doing the right thing in favor of the oppressed and poor.
Today’s Gospel selection from the Jewish Matthew is also strongly anti-imperial as well as anti-hypocritical. It deals with the question of paying taxes to Caesar.
Let me show you what I mean by (1) recounting the most relevant shocking facts unfolding in the Middle East while the whole world is watching; then (2) sharing my “translations” of the readings for this 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time; (3) pointing out their relevance for Apartheid-Israelis and their U.S. enablers as together they ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip, and finally (4) drawing some conclusions about the entire situation.
Israel-Palestine Today
Thursday night U.S. President Joe Biden pledged unwavering, unconditional support of Apartheid-Israel.
Assuming his leadership of NATO colonial powers (against the rest of world opinion) he proclaimed that Apartheid-America is:
What holds the world together,
Is universally loved,
Exceptional,
Indispensable,
All-powerful,
And unconditionally allied with Apartheid-Israelis,
Who in the face of Hamas’ pure evil,
Are admirably strong and resilient.
The president made these claims just after having:
Claimed (without any investigation or citing any evidence) that Hamas (“the other team” as he put it) not Apartheid-Israel was the one responsible for the war crime of destroying a large Gazan hospital at the cost of at least 600 Palestinian lives, not to mention the seriously injured,
Rejected (according to Alexander Mercouris) proposals to empower an independent investigation into that claim,
Been slapped in the face by Arab leaders who refused to meet with a U.S. president.
Vetoed a UN Security Council proposal calling for a humanitarian pause in Apartheid-Israel’s bombing campaign which had already claimed 3000 Palestinian victims, more than half of whom were women and children.
In the face of such hypocrisy, Mr. Biden’s claims about Apartheid-America appear pathetic, out-of-touch, and almost laughable. The aging president appeared to “protest too much.”
But over-protest is what declining empires have always done. Before their fall, they routinely divinize themselves, claim omnipotence, and pretend to be interested in peace.
That’s what the Roman Empire did. Or as Tacitus put it: “They create a wasteland and call it peace.” Romans even minted coins identifying the counterpart of Mr. Biden – Mr. Caesar – as God himself.
Imperial subjects have always seen right through such idolatry, drivel, and tired slogans. In response, they laugh, or cry, or like Hamas kill those who sympathize with or cooperate with apartheidism and its imperial supporters.
In today’s Gospel selection, Yeshua takes the humorous approach. He tricks his opponents into admitting their own hypocrisy. Going against their own rules, they’re exposed as bearers of idolatrous images on the occupiers’ coins.
Let’s look at the readings. What follows are my “translations” in the light of the remarks I’ve just made. Check out the originals here to see if I got them right.
Today’s Readings
Isaiah 45: 1, 4-6
600 years before Jesus, the Christ,
The LORD chose a non-Israelite,
Cyrus, king of Persia,
As His Anointed!
Yes, He tapped Cyrus,
As his “Christ,”
Because that non-believer liberated
Israeli captives
From their Babylonian Captivity.
And this
Though Cyrus
Knew nothing of “The LORD,”
But merely did the right thing,
By freeing the enslaved.
This means that
The all-powerful
Divine Parent
Doesn’t care
About “nationalities”
Or nation states
About “Israel” or “Persia,”
But only about justice and liberation
Of the downtrodden!
Psalm 96: 1-10
For such holy Carelessness
Because the Divine One
Loves us all,
Regardless of our origins
Or intellectual beliefs,
We are all grateful and happy!
1st Thessalonians 1: 1-5b
For instance,
Paul’s community in Thessalonica
Found location in Greece,
Not Israel.
It housed both Jews and Gentiles.
Their identity was based
On commitment to peace,
And on faith expressed
By sharing solidarity
With the poor
Identified by Yeshua
As God’s favorites
And liberating them
As the whole point
Of his prophetic work.
Matthew 22: 15-21
Jeshua's opponents
The populist Pharisees
And Roman puppet Herodians
Knew nothing of
God’s universal love.
While denouncing idolatry,
They hypocritically
(And against their own law)
Carried Roman coins,
Identifying Caesar
(Not the Divine One)
As God.
So, the trickster Yeshua
Turned the tables on them all,
Charging
That such hypocrisy
Meant that they
Belonged to Caesar,
Not to God!
For Yeshua,
Paying taxes wasn’t the issue.
Religious hypocrisy was.
The irreverent
Construction worker
From nowheresville Nazareth
Was so funny,
And such a smart debater!
Conclusion
The title of this homily is meant to highlight what I’ve just said. It underlines the fact that no nation – not Israel, not our own, not anybody’s – deserves “unconditional support.”
That’s because nation states are just fictions. Think about it. They are devices used by the rich and powerful (who often have stolen “their” land from indigenous people) to artificially separate a single people for purposes of dividing, ruling, and self-enrichment by way of practices like the taxation Jesus refused to endorse. Here by “single people,” I’m talking about humanity itself.
As for the indigenous themselves, every tribe believes it was divinely chosen (and in some sense, I guess they are). All indigenous people believe that the land their ancestors originally inhabited is exceptional and directly given to them by some Divinity.
And of course, in the case of Israel-Palestine, Apartheid-Israelis are not “the indigenous” and never were. They arrived in Palestine in 1948. They were European colonizers from places like Poland, Romania, Hungary, Russia (and lately) from the United States. And as Chomsky points out, any ownership claims based on 2000-year-old religious mythology can have no serious political standing in the modern world. To claim otherwise borders on the superstitious and ridiculous.
Moreover, even Zionists’ Exodus traditions admit that more than 3000 years ago, invading Hebrews from Egypt took part of Palestine from indigenous Canaanites and others by force of arms. I’m referring to Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, Geshurites, Maacaathites, and Philistines. All of those represent the indigenous ancestors of the Palestinians whose presence in the Holy Land long predated the arrival of Hebrews.
The bottom line is, however, that In the end, God or Source, the Ground of Being, the Divine Mother, Truth, or Life Itself (however you understand Ultimate Reality) doesn’t give a damn about ethnicity or race or national identity – except when they are used by imperial agents to divide and rule.
In fact, the Holy Books of the Judeo -Christian tradition make that point again and again. Most of the Bible’s books record the infidelities of Israel’s leadership and God’s punishment for their routine infidelity. This morning’s readings are no different. Neither are the events unfolding in Apartheid-Israel today.
Readings for 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Isaiah 25: 6-10a; Psalm 23: 1-6; Philippians 4: 12-14, 19-20; Ephesians 1: 17-18; Matthew 22: 1-14
One of the often-repeated memes justifying Apartheid Israel’s oppression of Palestinians was repeated yesterday by presidential candidate, Marianne Williamson. In an otherwise admirable statement (see below) “On the Israeli-Hamas War,” and in reference to Hamas’ surprise attack on Jewish settlements Ms. Williamson wrote:
“Hamas is a terrorist organization, and this was a terrorist attack. The aspirations of Hamas have nothing to do with striking a peace deal with Israel; their stated goal is the complete eradication of the state of Israel, and they will settle for nothing less.”
Of course, we’re all familiar with such perceptions, even though Hamas is much more complicated than Ms. Williamson allows.
Nevertheless, what if Hamas’ position as alleged by Williamson is correct? What if Apartheid Israel has no right to exist and as such deserves to be eradicated?
That might be a shocking idea for most. But what if it’s correct?
That’s a thought I’d like to explore in today’s homily which will try to relate it to today’s Gospel selection. There the Jewish author Matthew attempts to explain why Israel actually did cease to exist as a nation and was driven from the Holy Land after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The words Matthew attributed to Yeshua also suggest a rejection of Israel as God’s “Chosen” in favor of the socially marginalized who more resemble today’s Palestinians. Read them for yourself here.
My reflection will also include candidate Williamson’s wise and highly practical recommendations for ending the current conflict in Palestine.
Finally, I’ll add a call for truthful reconciliation between Jews and Palestinians who are actually brothers and sisters according to the religious traditions of both peoples.
Apartheid Israel
Begin by briefly thinking about apartheid and state legitimacy.
Did apartheid Rhodesia have the right to exist? What about apartheid South Africa? And Nazi Germany?
I’d say NO in each case. Apartheid systems are abhorrent, immoral, and always terroristic. And according to Amnesty International, Israel’s version represents an egregious crime against humanity.
Yes, Israel’s system is illegal. To begin with, it flies in the face of UN Resolution 242 which mandates return of all Palestinian lands seized since 1967.
This means that every one of Apartheid Israel’s settlements on the West Bank and its incursions into East Jerusalem and Gaza are illegitimate. So are its periodic bombings of Palestinian neighborhoods, and its associated and regular mass killings of Palestinians including women, children, and members of the press.
As a result, Apartheid Israel is an internationally criminal nation. International law condemns it in no uncertain terms. As an apartheid system, it has no right to exist.
The same international law, while prohibiting Hamas’ acts of terrorism, accords to Palestinians the right to take up arms against its oppressors.
Today’s Readings
As I said, I bring all of that up this Sunday because the day’s central liturgical reading has the Jewish prophet, Yeshua of Nazareth, condemning the leaders of his people for going along with a Roman system of discrimination. They cooperated with the foreign occupiers and hence refused to share the land’s abundance (its God-given “banquet”) with the poor and oppressed whose welfare is centralized in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Yes, the Jewish high priests and elders cooperated with the Roman occupation forces in repressing poor Jews, Samaritans, Canaanites, and resident aliens while neglecting such rejects who were always the favorites of Yeshua and Israel’s Divine Parent.
Today’s Gospel selection responds to such refusal and cooperation with an apartheid system.
It is the familiar parable about a king who throws a wedding party for his son. But the ones originally invited to the feast ungratefully refuse to come. They’re all too busy with selfish pursuits. Some even kill the king’s servants who bring the invitation in person.
In response, the king destroys the murderers themselves and reissues his invitation to the poor and marginalized.
But what does the parable mean? Historical considerations help us answer that question.
The story represents the reflections of a Jewish author called “Matthew” writing for Jews at least a half century after Yeshua’s death. Matthew knows that Jerusalem was completely razed to the ground by Rome in the year 70 CE. As a nation with its own homeland, it ceased to exist. His question is why?
The answer Matthew puts in Jesus’ mouth explains Jerusalem’s erasure in terms of karmic punishment meted out to its “leaders” for refusing God’s abundant gifts and not sharing the abundance of the Promised Land (referenced in today’s first three readings) with those Matthew describes as mere street people – outsiders, “the good and bad alike.”
In other words, Matthew’s judgment is that the land of Israel belonged to all its inhabitants not just to Jews, Israel’s political class and the rich – and certainly not to the Romans. Refusal to share God’s banquet for all led to the death of a nation.
Moreover, the parable suggests the Jewish Matthew’s new understanding of “chosen people.” God’s “chosen” are (and always have been, Matthew realizes) the poor and oppressed in general. They are people like today’s Palestinians — rather than a single arrogant, rich, and self-satisfied ethnic group represented by the “priests and elders of the people.”
Applying the Parable
The question for us today is how can Yeshua’s prophetic vision of a new chosen people and a motherland shared with the poor and oppressed be applied to Israel-Palestine now?
The answer is: By ending all systems of apartheid and recognizing humanity itself (including both Jews and Gentiles) as God’s Chosen.
Here’s where Marianne Williamson becomes more helpful and articulate than Joe Biden or anyone else in our country’s vengeful Uni-party. In today’s context, she advises:
Establishing a U.S. Department of Peace as a cabinet level office.
Making peacebuilding not war the cornerstone of American foreign policy.
Standing firmly not only with Israel, but “no less” for the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people.
Beginning a deeper dialog on the current situation by meeting not only with Jewish American leaders (as President Biden has done) but with Arab-American leaders (particularly Palestinian).
Ending the siege of Gaza.
Immediately restoring power there and access to food, water, and medical supplies.
Changing U.S. policy towards Israel so that while continuing to support it militarily, the changes emphasize the need for justice towards the Palestinians.
Moving the U.S. embassy back to Tel Aviv.
Demanding justice for the American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh who was shot dead by the Israeli Defense Forces.
Strongly opposing Israeli occupation of the West Bank, illegal settlements there, and the blockade of Gaza.
Demanding that no military assistance to Israel be used to support any of those policies.
Supporting all efforts to create the resurrection of plans for a two-state solution to the problems of Israel-Palestine.
Working assiduously with Middle East peace builders both in Israel-Palestine and in the United States.
Using American power to side with our highest ally: humanity itself.
To Ms Williamson’s list I would add for the sake of clarity: Never referring to Israel without calling it “Apartheid Israel.”
Conclusion
In faith perspective, what is really needed to solve the current problems in Israel-Palestine is a genuine process of truth and reconciliation. Israel-Palestine needs a Truth and Reconciliation Process like that implemented in South Africa after the end of apartheid there.
To begin with, truth demands that both parties recognize the fact that they are cousins at least, if not brothers and sisters. Both Jews and Palestinian Arabs are Semites. In that sense, both have been guilty of anti-Semitism.
Both peoples also share horrendous histories as victims of prejudice and persecution – both communities at the hands of Christians for centuries, and Palestinians by Jews since the beginning of the 20th century and especially after 1948.
Both Jews and Palestinians must also confess and repent of their acts of terrorism. Jews must face the fact that they have unrelentingly terrorized Palestinians on a daily basis since 1948. And despite their internationally recognized right to take up arms against their Jewish occupiers, Palestinians must admit that nothing can justify responses like those we all witnessed last week.
Such facts and admissions alone should provide bonds of honesty, humility, empathy and shared identity that can soften hearts and open the way to any peace and reconciliation process.
As candidate Williamson would put it: “humanity itself” demands such fellow-feeling, confession, repentance, and open hearts. So does the entire Judeo-Christian tradition – which, of course, is shared by Muslims as well.
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