LA Anti-War March, September 24

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Hello,

Excellent photograph. I covered this march fro the PCC paper today (that's me in the red Hellraiser/Mother Jones shirt - front row on the left). I don't know if any of our own photographers showed up...didn't see them there. If not, please contact me, as I would love to talk about using this photo on the front page, if at all possible. I love these photographs by Marcus. They are shot with a much better eye than the rest of the photos on this site.

Thanks-

Keith

Hello,

Excellent photograph. I covered this march fro the PCC paper today (that's me in the red Hellraiser/Mother Jones shirt - front row on the left). I don't know if any of our own photographers showed up...didn't see them there. If not, please contact me, as I would love to talk about using this photo on the front page, if at all possible. I love these photographs by Marcus. They are shot with a much better eye than the rest of the photos on this site.

Thanks-

Keith

Waving Mexican flags and having feathered dancers does nothing to adance the message. What does a Mexican flag have to do with being against the war?

You would be much better coming off as real Americans that are concerned and fed up, than some fringe element. Thousands of American flags with people holding them that are decently dressed would send a message. Shabbily dressed, smelly protesters holding ugly signs and foreign flags will only get you ignored by mainstream American's that are also against the war like me.

The photos of the LA march tell the predictable story. Despite five years of work by real peace activists, the Zionists have once again managed to bury the one absolutely unbeatable antiwar reality and argument – the same reality and argument that are absolutely unbeatable challenges to Zionism.
The openly-declared, blazingly racist ethnic-cleansing of Palestine in broad daylight is utterly invisible in the demonstration, despite the fact that it is the core of all US-Israeli belligerence toward the Arab and Muslim world, and despite the fact that it is the one and only issue that makes the whole picture clear to ordinary Americans and progressives: which is WHY the Zionists need to keep the reality buried deep in a psychic fog.
The one and only sign which mentions Palestine in all the photos uses precisely the standard Zionist language, framing the “right of return” as in interesting idea, which we should “support.” This intentionally hides the reality: that we must STOP FINANCING and ACTIVELY COMMITTING the openly racist violence which PREVENTS Palestinians from going home, and violently trashes this ordinary human right EXPRESSLY because the victims are an undesired ethnicity.
All the Zionists and their compatriots have to do, in order to keep walking over a media-dazed, festivity-loving, Zionist-dominated “antiwar movement,” decade after decade, is keep it ignoring the openly-declared racist violence of a “Jewish” settler-state forced ever-deeper into Palestine. Any such indefensible racism at the core of any other expanding global conflict would be given the primary emphasis and absolute zero tolerance it deserves, but in this case it is not even mentioned in the Zionist-orchestrated “antiwar” festivals.
The emphasis on “Bush” is a favorite Zionist ploy, ignoring the fact that, for the first full year of renewed Middle East violence, including the murders of, on average, six Palestinian children per week, no audible protest was heard from the comatose “progressive” lifestyle, which knew what was going on but stubbornly did nothing except silently, VOLUNTARILY continue financing that openly racist mayhem at a rate of13 million US dollars per day. Bush – or someone like him – has always been the inevitable RESULT of just such Zionist thought-control, which continues, as seen in the feely-goody demonstration photos.

This “view” has been presented hundreds of times in the past five years, in all relevant internet forums and in the most scholarly studies, and it has never, ever been answered by any kind of rebuttal.

The Zionists simply keep shepherding our “antiwar” herds along, each individual totally incapable of seeing anything for him-or-herself – not EVEN something as clear as the need to protest violent state racism when it is happening right before our eyes, as plain as it can ever get.
THAT dumbed-down, whimsically irrational mentality, “even” at the “antiwar” level, is the ultimate and deepest source of our current problems: if an antiwar movement cannot even protest SPECIFIC racist violence, we must not expect anyone else to take the lead for us.

The Politics of Anti-Semitism

What constitutes genuine anti-Semitism--Jew hatred--as opposed to disingenuous, specious charges of "anti-Semitism" hurled at realistic, rational appraisals of the state of Israel's political, military and social conduct?

There's no more explosive topic in American public life today than the issue of Israel, its treatment of Palestinians and its influence on American politics.

Yet the topic is one that is so hedged with anxiety, fury and fear, that honest discussion is often impossible.

The Politics of Anti-Semitism lifts this embargo.

http://counterpunch.com/poas.html

The proper thing to do is to point out at every opportunity the role Israel played in getting the US sucked into the war in Iraq (such as information fed by Israel through the OSP in the Pentagon). And cite Victor Ostrovsky's work to expose how Israel operates. Americans should not fear these duplicious bastards. What is a spurious accusation of "anti-Semitism", anyway? What is it next to the billions of dollars sent to a Zionist regime that sees us the same way a parasite sees a host?

Linguistic Question of the Week

Two definitions from the Merriam-Webster dictionary...

Main Entry: Sem•ite
Pronunciation: 'se-"mIt, esp British 'sE-"mIt
Function: noun
Etymology: French sémite, from Semitic Shem, from Late Latin, from Greek SEm, from Hebrew ShEm
Date: 1848
1 a : a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia, including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs
b : a descendant of these peoples

Main Entry: an•ti-Sem•i•tism
Pronunciation: "an-ti-'se-m&-"ti-z&m, "an-"tI-
Function: noun
Date: 1882
: hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group
Question: If Semites include "Hebrews and Arabs," why is anti-Semitism just "hostility toward or discrimination against Jews" instead of all Semites?

> Question: If Semites include "Hebrews and Arabs," why is anti-Semitism
> just "hostility toward or discrimination against Jews" instead of all Semites?

Because that's how this term is used practically. If it was used as hatred against non-Jews as well, then there would be another term. But I don't think anyone has a doubt what sole nation is meant by the term anti-Semitism.

In the same way, Jews are not the only nationality in Israel; but everybody knows that any criticism against Israel is in fact fueled by the hatred towards Jews. It's the same common practice, and everybody is aware that there can't be any other reason to criticize such a true, trusted, time-tested democratic ally of U.S. as Israel.

Same way, soon-to-be-passed anti-hate-speech law in U.S., first of all will be applied to the critics of Israel. Though hate can sometimes be directed towards other groups of people as well, again, everybody knows what single group of people _really_ needs protection from it on a permanent basis.

all the face are too much visible....where id the privacy??

Agree. Aren't these anti-war protestors a cute inoffensivie, ineffective bunch? US/Israeli colonialism equals war, terror. Justice in Palestine equals peace... at least a chance of it.

We need more anti-zionist protestors, not more anti-war protestors.

in order to pursue a policy of genocide in the Mideast, it is convenient for the Zionists to make it illegal to criticize their actions. A nation or religion may commit acts or espouse aims that are reprehensible. The most expedient way to eliminate any criticism thereof is to claim that such criticism is aimed at an ethnicity, which is not an individual's choice, and therefore entitled to legally protected status.

excessive focus on the racist buzzword "anti-semitism" obscures what you all should really be paying attention to:

the alliance of US-based Fundamentalist Christians with pro-Zionist forces to destabilize the Middle East.

Christianists and Zionism (6.May.2005 update)

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/05/316906.shtml

US-based fundamentalist Christians (aka Christianists) and pro-Zionist forces are dually linked as the greatest threat to global peace and stability existing today on earth. Quite literally, their prime goal and intention is to bring the human population closer to the brink of the biblical-revelation-described 'Rapture'.

Articles and their selected excerpts below - with many references and sub-links - explain, in detail, the pervasive and unfettered power that these groups and ideologies have (especially with the advent of GWB administration post-9/11) over the current US military, mass media http://www.corporations.org/media/ and corporate regime.
[previous 22.Jan.2005 20:16 post here http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/01/308997.shtml]

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A Strange Kind of Freedom, by Robert Fisk
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=313235
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0710-07.htm
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/300832.shtml

An Ideological Tower of Babel, by Lila Rajiva
http://www.counterpunch.org/rajiva01152005.html
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/01/308216.shtml

Christianist Ayatollahs Bring America To Shame; Are Worse Threat Than 'Communism'
http://www.opednews.com/kall051704_christianist_ayatollahs.htm
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/288638.shtml

The Jesus Landing Pad, by Rick Perlstein
Bush White House checked with rapture Christians before latest Israel move
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0420/perlstein.php
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/288694.shtml

Air Jesus
With The Evangelical Air Force
http://www.mediatransparency.org/stories/nrbconvention.html

Stations of the Cross: How Evangelical Christians Are Creating an Alternative Universe of Faith-Based News
By Mariah Blake
The Columbia Journalism Review
http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/3/blake-evangelist.asp
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/050505G.shtml

Bush, Christian Right and Zionism
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/12/305253.shtml

Israel's Men from JINSA and CSP
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2002/12/39650.shtml

Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell is on the JINSA advisory board
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/12/305345.shtml

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Christianists and Zionism
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/01/308997.shtml

US-based fundamentalist Christians (aka Christianists) and pro-Zionist forces are dually linked as the greatest threat to global peace and stability existing today on earth. Quite literally, their prime goal and intention is to bring the human population closer to the brink of the biblical-revelation-described 'Rapture'.

Articles below - with many references and sub-links - explain, in detail, the pervasive and unfettered power that these groups and ideologies have (especially with the advent of GWB administration post-9/11) over the current US military, mass media, and corporate regime.

----------

A Strange Kind of Freedom, by Robert Fisk
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=313235
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0710-07.htm
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/300832.shtml

The most astonishing -- and least covered -- story is in fact the alliance of Israeli lobbyists and Christian Zionist fundamentalists, a coalition that began in 1978 with the publication of a Likud plan to encourage fundamentalist churches to give their support to Israel. By 1980, there was an "International Christian Embassy" in Jerusalem; and in 1985, a Christian Zionist lobby emerged at a "National Prayer Breakfast for Israel" whose principal speaker was Benjamin Netanyahu, who was to become Israeli prime minister. "A sense of history, poetry and morality imbued the Christian Zionists who, more than a century ago, began to write, plan and organise for Israel's restoration," Netanyahu told his audience. The so-called National Unity Coalition for Israel became a lobbying arm of Christian Zionism with contacts in Congress and neo-conservative think-tanks in Washington.

. . . In May [2002], the Israeli embassy in Washington, no less, arranged a prayer breakfast for Christian Zionists. Present were Alonzo Short, a member of the board of "Promise Keepers", and Michael Little who is president of the "Christian Broadcasting Network". Event hosts were listed as including those dour old Christian conservatives Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who once financed a rogue television station in southern Lebanon which threatened Muslim villagers and broadcast tirades by Major Saad Haddad, Israel's stooge militia leader in Lebanon. In Tennessee, Jewish officials invited hundreds of Christians to join Jewish crowds at a pro-Israel solidarity rally in Memphis.

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An Ideological Tower of Babel, by Lila Rajiva
http://www.counterpunch.org/rajiva01152005.html
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/01/308216.shtml

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Christianist Ayatollahs Bring America To Shame; Are Worse Threat Than 'Communism'
http://www.opednews.com/kall051704_christianist_ayatollahs.htm
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/288638.shtml

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The Jesus Landing Pad, by Rick Perlstein
Bush White House checked with rapture Christians before latest Israel move
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0420/perlstein.php
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/288694.shtml

It was an e-mail we weren't meant to see. Not for our eyes were the notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that "the Presidents [sic] Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level"—this to a group whose representative in Israel believed herself to have been attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry Potter. Most of all, apparently, we're not supposed to know the National Security Council's top Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios.

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Bush, Christian Right and Zionism
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/12/305253.shtml

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Israel's Men from JINSA and CSP
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2002/12/39650.shtml

Almost thirty years ago, a prominent group of neoconservative hawks found an effective vehicle for advocating their views via the Committee on the Present Danger, a group that fervently believed the United States was a hair away from being militarily surpassed by the Soviet Union, and whose raison d'être was strident advocacy of bigger military budgets, near-fanatical opposition to any form of arms control and zealous championing of a Likudnik Israel. Considered a marginal group in its nascent days during the Carter Administration, with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 CPD went from the margins to the center of power.

Just as the right-wing defense intellectuals made CPD a cornerstone of a shadow defense establishment during the Carter Administration, so, too, did the right during the Clinton years, in part through two organizations: the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Center for Security Policy (CSP). And just as was the case two decades ago, dozens of their members have ascended to powerful government posts, where their advocacy in support of the same agenda continues, abetted by the out-of-government adjuncts from which they came. Industrious and persistent, they've managed to weave a number of issues--support for national missile defense, opposition to arms control treaties, championing of wasteful weapons systems, arms aid to Turkey and American unilateralism in general--into a hard line, with support for the Israeli right at its core.

On no issue is the JINSA/CSP hard line more evident than in its relentless campaign for war--not just with Iraq, but "total war," as Michael Ledeen, one of the most influential JINSAns in Washington, put it last year . . . Indeed, there are some in military and intelligence circles who have taken to using "axis of evil" in reference to JINSA and CSP . . .

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Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell is on the JINSA advisory board
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/12/305345.shtml

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Stations of the Cross: How Evangelical Christians Are Creating an Alternative Universe of Faith-Based News
By Mariah Blake
The Columbia Journalism Review
http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/3/blake-evangelist.asp
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/050505G.shtml

. . .

Christians have been flocking to broadcasting ever since the first radio programs began crackling across the airwaves in the early 1900s. By the 1930s, evangelicals were lobbying for policies that would ensure their dominance in the religious broadcasting realm. Their activism was catalyzed by the fact that early on, the big-three networks donated rather than sold airtime to religious organizations. The Federal Council of Churches, which represented the more liberal mainline denominations, favored this system, which it believed would help keep the religious message from getting corrupted. But evangelicals worried that networks would lavish mainline churches with free airtime while giving their own ministries short shrift. In 1944, they formed the National Religious Broadcasters( NRB), and that organization lobbied federal regulators. The strategy worked; the government eventually decided to let religious organizations purchase as much airtime as they could afford. Evangelical preachers were soon flooding the airwaves, while mainline broadcast ministries all but vanished from the radio dial.

In the sixty-one years since its founding, the NRB has grown to represent 1,600 broadcasters with billions of dollars in media holdings and staggering political clout. Its aggressive political maneuverings have helped shape federal policy, further easing the evangelical networks' rapid growth. In 2000, for instance, the Federal Communications Commission issued guidelines that would have barred religious broadcasters from taking over frequencies designated for educational programming. The NRB lobbied Congress to intervene, at one point delivering a petition signed by nearly half a million people. Legislators, in turn, bore down on the FCC, and the agency relented.

. . .

As the NRB has grown larger and more powerful, so have the broadcasters it represents. Over the last decade, Christian TV networks have added tens of millions of homes to their distribution lists by leaping onto satellite and cable systems. The number of religious radio stations - the vast majority of which are evangelical - has grown by about 85 percent since 1998 alone. They now outnumber rock, classical, hip-hop, R&B, soul, and jazz stations combined.

. . .

Christian news networks devote an enormous amount of airtime to Israel, and their interest has theological underpinnings. In addition to being the place where many biblical events unfolded, Israel plays a pivotal role in biblical prophecy. Most evangelicals emphasize that God granted Israel to the Jews through a covenant with Abraham. They believe that the Jews' return to Israel was biblically foreordained, and that Jewish control over Israel will trigger a cascade of apocalyptic events that will culminate in Christ's second coming. Israel's strength is vital to their own redemption.

Such beliefs explain the unwavering support for Israel expressed by some evangelical talk show hosts. Among them is Kay Arthur, whose radio and TV program, Precepts For Life, offers audiences biblical solutions to everyday dilemmas such as divorce and addictions. She took to the stage at the Israeli Ministry of Tourism Breakfast, held in conjunction with the 2005 NRB conference, and told the hundreds of broadcasters in the audience, "If it came to a choice between Israel and America, I would stand with Israel." Janet Parshall, host of a popular political program that also runs both on radio and TV, implored the Israelis in attendance, "Please, please, do not give up any more land." Lest anyone think her alone in her zeal, she urged all those who believed "in the sovereignty of Israel" to stand. Virtually everyone in the room got up.

Some influential evangelical hosts - among them Arthur, Parshall, and Pat Robertson - sometimes broadcast live from Israel and urge listeners and viewers to visit the country. Their pleas have helped persuade thousands of American Christians to brave the bloody Intifada for a chance to savor the sights and smells of Christ's homeland, while supporting Israel's battered economy.

The Israeli government has responded with gratitude. Senior officials meet regularly with evangelical broadcasters. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent Pat Robertson a taped message for his seventy-fifth birthday, thanking him for his stalwart support. In addition to staging lavish events in the broadcasters' honor, the country's tourism ministry rents one of the largest booths at each year's NRB conference. This year's event also featured a number of other Israel-focused exhibits, including the burned-out hull of a Jerusalem city bus that was struck by a suicide bomber in January 2004. Part of the roof had been ripped off and all that was left of the rear seats was a jumble of twisted steel and charred upholstery. Near the bumper hung a poster with images of bomb-laden Palestinian boys. It read: "When Palestinians love their children more than they hate Israel, then there will be peace in Palestine."

The turmoil gripping the Middle East has proven to be a particularly appealing topic for shows like the International Intelligence Briefing and Prophecy in the News, which interpret world events - be it the rise of the European Union or the Asian tsunami - in light of biblical prophecy. This approach tends to cast events that flow from controversial human choices as the natural and inevitable march of destiny. Prophecy-focused shows suggest that the war in Iraq was foretold in the Bible, for instance.

Some political talk shows go even further out on the apocalyptic edge. Among them is the 700 Club, which airs on numerous mainstream stations and reaches about a million U.S. viewers each day. Its February 25 edition featured an interview with a man named Glenn Miller, touted on the 700 Club Web site as a "proven prophet." A scholarly looking man, Miller sat nestled in an armchair, a faux-urban skyline glittering in the background, and explained why God had sent America to war with Iraq. "It has nothing to do with terrorism," he told Pat Robertson's son, Gordon. "It has nothing to do with oil. It has everything to do with that there's 1.2 million Muslims that have been deceived by the false God Allah, and that the God of heaven, Jehovah, is now in the process of doing war if you will against that spirit to . . . break the power of deception so those people can be exposed to the gospel." As Miller spoke, Robertson nodded in sympathy. At one point, Robertson chimed in with the tale of a CBN reporter who was embedded with one of the first infantry divisions to march into Baghdad: "He said there was a sense among the troops - and he had this personal sense as well - that this was a spiritual victory, that this was a movement in the heavenlies."

Some evangelical talk show hosts see more conflict on the horizon in the Middle East. For instance, J.R. Church of Prophecy in the News recently predicted that the United States would attack Syria, probably with a nuclear bomb. As proof the host pointed to a passage from Isaiah, which warned that Damascus would be reduced to a "ruinous heap."

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Air Jesus
With The Evangelical Air Force
http://www.mediatransparency.org/stories/nrbconvention.html

As Christian broadcasting's leading lights gathered at the National Religious Broadcasters' convention in Anaheim, California, only power-mongering and profiteering could keep their contradictions from bubbling to the surface

by Max Blumenthal
for Mediatransparency.org

POSTED FEBRUARY 27, 2005 --

"How many of you out there think ministering the Word is unpopular?" the Rev. James McDonald asked a rapt crowd of hundreds at the opening ceremony of the National Religious Broadcasters' (NRB - http://www.nrb.org/) convention. A beefy, bald-headed evangelist Air Jesus: With the Evangelical Air Forcewith a folksy style and an uncanny resemblance to Jesse Ventura, McDonald spent his 30 minute sermon harping on a theme that would dominate the convention: Christian persecution.

. . .

Nowhere during the NRB conference were the contradictions more severe -- or better suppressed -- than at the Israeli Tourism Ministry breakfast. Since the Intifada began four years ago, damaging Israel's international prestige and scaring off Jewish tourists, Israel ramped up its campaign for evangelical support by marketing itself as the place "where Jesus walked" and enlisting Christian broadcasters as surrogate propagandists. With the Intifada now at a dead end and Israel expecting upwards of 700,000 Christian tourists this year, tourism officials deployed to the convention exuded a blithe, celebratory mood, feting their Christian guests with abundant helpings of scrambled eggs, creamed spinach and sweet rolls, all courtesy of grateful Israeli taxpayers.

In recent years, one of the most outspoken evangelical supporters of Israel has been popular radio host Janet Parshall. As the breakfast's keynote speaker, she described her decision to tour Israel by recounting a conversation with God.

"God, the Holy Land has terrorists, I said. But, God said, 'Janet, you're from Washington DC,'" Parshall recalled to uproarious laughter. But whom was Parshall's God referring to? To DC's political class? Or to DC's sizable population of young Black males who are so often demonized in the conservative media as a criminal plague? The crowd seemed to know.

Parshall was preceded by Michael Medved, a former left-wing Jewish radical who gained prominence as a convert to conservatism. He began his speech by reminding the crowd why he was one of the Christian Right's favorite House Hebrews: "A more Christian America is good for the Jews because a more Christian America is good for America." The audience clapped politely, but did not truly warm up to Medved until his first salvo against other Jews. "When you see Jews who are part of the attack on Christmas," Medved said, "you know they have rejected their own faith." The crowd erupted in spontaneous applause.

Perhaps the most startling moment of the morning was an appearance by popular Christian Zionist author, Kay Arthur of Precepts Ministries. "I love America," Arthur said, her voice quivering with emotion. "But if it came to a choice between Israel and America, I would stand with Israel." While the crowd applauded tepidly, I looked around and saw more than a few faces cringing with embarrassment. Arthur went on to read excerpts from the Book of Revelations, painting a surreal image of Jesus seated in a throne floating above Jerusalem, rapturing all the world's true believers up to Heaven. She left the fate of unreconstructed Jews to the imagination.

When Arthur finished, Israel's soft-spoken tourism minister, Avraham Hirschsohn, approached the podium to declare somewhat unctuously, "You stood with us for the last four years when nobody else would. Thank you."

The following day, I paid a visit to the Israeli Tourism Ministry's booth in the convention's cavernous exposition hall. There I met a tall, svelte blonde named Marina, who lived on a cooperative mango farm near the Sea of Gallilee. I asked her if she agreed with the political views of the NRB conventioneers.

"No, no, and no," she stated firmly.

Then what was she doing there?

"I walked around here earlier today looking at everything," Marina said, "and I wondered to myself, 'What am I doing here?'" Her eyes welled up with tears. "I mean, come on, these people are anti-Semitic." Though I didn't see any overt anti-semitism in evidence at the conference, evangelical leaders like Pat Robertson http://www.cursor.org/stories/selfdealing.htm and Don Wildmon of the American Family Association ( http://www.afa.net/about.asp) have long histories of anti-semitic statements.

Just then a small, aging man ambled towards us and identified himself as Itzhak, the founder of Kibbutz Ginosar ( http://www.ginosar.co.il/indexe.html), also located on the Gallilee. "But these people supported us for four years," he reminded Marina in a scolding tone, referring to conservative evangelicals. I asked him if he agreed with their politics.

Itzhak paused, staring at the ground for a moment, then asked me, "Did you see the bus?"

I replied that I had not.

"The Americans brought that bus," he said. His voice dripped with disdain.

I followed Itzhak's directions to the back of the convention hall and there it was: Bus #19 http://www.tjci.org/bus19/html/about-where.htm , a Jerusalem city bus attacked by a Palestinian suicide bomber in January 2004. A scorched, hollow hulk of twisted steel beams, the bus was hoisted up on a display platform like a concept car at some macabre auto convention. A giant piece of posterboard leaning against the platform featured headshots of hundreds of Israeli suicide bombing casualties. Beside was a banner that read, "Terror Cannot Be Tolerated." (So must tolerance be terrorized?)

Bus #19 is owned by a Christian Zionist group called "The Jerusalem Connection" ( http://www.tjci.org/), which, according to its president, retired US Brigadier General James Hutchens, "looks at the conflict in Israel within a biblical context." The bus had toured the world, from The Hague, where it served as a prop for protesters against the World Court's condemnation of the Israeli separation wall, to the US for various evangelical "Remember Israel" rallies. At each stop, it was being offered up by The Jerusalem Connection like a moonbounce for a kid's birthday party.

At a table near the bus, a Jerusalem Connection employee was handing out pamphlets titled, "Bring Bus #19 To Your Community!" One reason the pamphlet offered for sponsoring it: "For Christians, you will increase in stature, appreciation and acceptance by Jews."

Rev. Plummer was holding court with some friends beside the bus, just where he promised to be during his fiery speech a day prior at the Israeli Tourism Ministry breakfast. A slight, mustachioed Black man, Plummer is a leading light in the GOP's push for a greater share of the Black vote. And though he took his token potshots at Black liberals at the breakfast, asserting that Blacks "have more allegiance to a party than to the God that made us," his most vitriolic statements were directed against Islam.

"I come from Detroit, where the biggest mosque in America is," Plummer said:

"It didn't take 9/11 to show me there is a battle for the souls of men...When Islam comes into a place, their intention is to take over everything. The businesses, the neighborhoods, everything."

In theory, Plummer wasn't opposed to having religious extremists subvert a greater society. His critique of Islam, couched in the language of spiritual warfare, was only meant to cast it as Christianity's most dangerous competitor. The Christian Right's dominionist intentions, a theme of the convention, were particularly in evidence at a seminar called, "Taking Over Cities For Christ: The Thousand Day Plan."

The seminar was led by Raul Justiniano, the Bolivian president of the Confederation of Ibero-American Communicators (COICOM), NRB's Latin American counterpart. Like a counter-revolutionary version of Che Guevara, the goateed Justiniano laid out his three-year plan to "invade" Latin American cities one by one by establishing cells in local churches and spreading outwards to "take possession of all parts of the city."

In the past decade, Justiniano has plastered Latin American cities with apparently non-religious billboard advertisements soliciting people to evangelization centers, saturated local media with Christian-themed commercials and films, and hosted stadium-sized revivals across the sub-continent. All in all, he claims to have won millions of souls through 61 "invasions" in six countries.

"Christian media is the air force and the church gives us people on the ground to mobilize our troops," Justiniano explained. "People will take notice and those are your targets. Everyone will be networked in eventually."

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End Times Imperialism
Biblical Prophecy and Christian Zionism

By GARY LEUPP

http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp05072005.html

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Christian Zionism: The Fastest Growing Cult in The World

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/07/322381.shtml

xcellent article http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/Laura-Knight-Jadczyk/fastest_growing_cult.htm by Laura Knight-Jadczyk, which points out the threats posed by the alliance of US-based Fundamentalist Christians with Zionism (see my previous Portland IMC posts here http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/05/316906.shtml and here http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/01/308997.shtml), along with detailed historical background, political/economic connections and theological underpinnings of these 21st century mass brainwashers.

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[EXCERPTS ONLY - click link below for complete original article]
http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/Laura-Knight-Jadczyk/fastest_growing_cult.htm

The Fastest Growing Cult in The World

by Laura Knight-Jadczyk

July 30, 2005: It will be useful (even necessary) for the reader of this article to be familiar with my series "Who Wrote the Bible," http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/biblewho1.htm as well as "Truth or Lies," http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/truth_or_lies.htm both of which address many of the issues of religions and how they are created and imposed on the masses as means of control. It is also extremely useful to read my review of Burton Mack's "The Book of Q and Christian Origins." http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/Laura-Knight-Jadczyk/lost_gospel.htm Mack's conclusions regarding the importance of "event of mythicization of "Jesus" on our world are quite startling considering what has transpired on the world stage since he wrote this book.

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The reader may also want to pick up copies of Gershom Gorenberg's book The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount, and "Forcing God's Hand: Why Millions Pray for a Quick Rapture and Destruction of Planet Earth. by Grace Halsell.

Gershom Gorenberg is an associate editor and columnist for The Jerusalem Report, a regular contributor to The New Republic, and an associate of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University. He lives in Jerusalem, where he has spent years covering the dangerous mix of religion and politics.

Grace Halsell served President Lyndon Johnson as his speech writer for three years. She covered both Korea and Vietnam as a journalist. She was the author of 14 books, including "Prophecy and Politics: Militant Evangelists on the Road to Nuclear War."

The facts that these two authors, one Christian and one Jewish, briefly stated, are that the Armageddon theology of the New Christian Right is being propagated by numerous TV evangelists, including Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, along with Hal Lindsey's widely read The Late Great Planet Earth, and Tim LaHayes' "Left Behind" series, and that this theology is influencing millions of human beings worldwide to not only believe that the world is going to end soon, but that it is their duty to hasten the event in any way they can.

Halsell interviewed fundamentalists, all of whom believed that we must fulfill the biblical prophecy of fighting World War III preparatory to Christ's Second Coming. Most disquieting is her discussion of an alliance of the New Christian Right and militant Zionists who share a common belief and enthusiasm for a global holocaust. Alarming, too, is the extent of the political influence of these evangelists, the Israeli lobby and the fact that the policies of George W. Bush are largely subject to his alleged belief in the inevitability of a God-willed nuclear war. I suspect that Bush, behind the scenes, is not truly Christian, even in his own mind, but rather follows the ideas of Machiavelli which posit that a leader must appear to be religious in order to induce the masses who are believers to follow him.

Both Gorenberg and Halsell detail and document the history of the alliance between militant Zionism and Christian fundamentalism and expose the purpose of the alliance which is the return to Israeli control of all of Palestine and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. For the religious Zionist, these actions are the prerequisite to the Messiah's FIRST coming. For the Christian fundamentalists, it is prerequisite to Armageddon and Messiah's SECOND coming. Reclamation of Israel from the Palestinians who have lived there for over 2000 years, and establishing Jewish hegemony, including the use of nuclear weapons (Armageddon) are seen as events to be earnestly desired and supported.

Armageddon is seen by Christian fundamentalists as "nuclear and imminent", waiting only for proper orchestration from American political leaders. The Zionists, naturally, do NOT include Armageddon in their messianic aspirations.

Gorenberg's book was written before 9-11 and, in this sense, was extremely prescient. The reader who wishes to understand what is at the root of the current conflict that threatens to engulf our planet will find his history of those 35 disputed acres of the Temple Mount to be crucial. Gorenberg makes clear what is at the root of the volatile relationships between Arabs, Jews and Christians in Israel. He pays special attention to carefully documenting and analyzing the actions and beliefs of fundamentalist groups in all three religions.

Jewish messianists and Christian millennialists both believe that building the Third Temple on the site where both Solomon's and Herod's temples are alleged to have stood is essential for their respective prophetic scenarios to take place (never mind that they seem to both be using each other and each believe that the other is just a dumb tool), while the Muslim believers fear that efforts to destroy Al-Aqsa mosque to make way for the Third Temple will prevent fulfillment of the prophecy about Islam's Meccan shrine migrating to Jerusalem at the end of time.

Gorenberg calls Temple Mount "a sacred blasting cap".

The problem is, of course, as I show in Who Wrote the Bible, there probably never was a FIRST "Temple of Solomon," and the Old Testament is NOT a true "history of the Jews." So, the problem is: if Islam is predicated on two "manufactured" religions, what does that say about the faith of the Islamic fundamentalists?

The fact is: There is an alliance between America and Israel in the war on Islam. They are both determined to establish Israeli control over Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple where the Dome of the Rock now stands and the Palestinians are in the way. And just as Christians and Jews are quite willing to sacrifice their own people for this monstrous agenda, so are Muslims undoubtedly raising up terrorists to do as much damage to the "infidels" as possible so as to save their holy site. But to really get a grip on the explosive situation, we have to lay the major share of the blame for Islamic terrorism in the current day where the power has resided for a very long time: in the West, the Christian West:

There's a new religious cult in America. It's not composed of so-called "crazies" so much as mainstream, middle to upper-middle class Americans. They listen - and give millions of dollars each week - to the RV evangelists who expound the fundamentals of the cult. They read Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye. They have one goal: to facilitate God's hand to waft them up to heaven free from all trouble, from where they will watch Armageddon and the destruction of Planet Earth. This doctrine pervades Assemblies of God, Pentecostal, and other charismatic churches, as well as Southern Baptist, independent Baptist, and countless so-called Bible churches and mega-churches. At least one out of every 10 Americans is a devotee of this cult. It is the fastest growing religious movement in Christianity today. -- Dale Crowley Jr., religious broadcaster, Washington D.C.

The "Rapture of the Church" is an idea popularized by John Darby, a nineteenth-century British preacher. The word "Rapture" describes the joy of the believers while the rest of humanity is facing apocalyptic terror, seven years' worth, before God's kingdom on earth is established.

Tim LaHaye - with his ghost-writer Jerry B. Jenkins - has produced a series of books that seek to make that terror real, to depict the "Rapture" in the world of jumbo jets and IMacs.

LaHaye's books are REAL to people living in frightening times. For the true believer, LaHaye's books are not just accurate descriptions of how it is all going to actually happen, they provide satisfyingly delicious scenarios of being proven RIGHT. The non-believers are treated to long and drawn-out descriptions of what is going to happen to them on earth after the Rapture.

One of the key elements of the "Rapture" theory is the Antichrist. This individual signs a seven-year peace treaty with Israel - which includes rebuilding the Temple. Jews are expected to unanimously support this project and Muslims also will agree to move the Dome of the Rock to "New Babylon."

The rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem is required in the scenario because the Antichrist must desecrate it half way through the Tribulation which is supposed to include war, earthquakes, and locusts. All of this is to be hoped for as a necessary preliminary to establishing God's kingdom on Earth.

The theory demands something else: that Jews will convert to Christianity in masses so that they can then become "witnesses" or converters of more gentiles. Darby's theory insists that God's promises to the people of Israel must be read literally as applying to literal Jews. Therefore, the Jews WILL convert (because it is in the eschatological screenplay).

At the "End of the World," the believers of three faiths will watch the same drama, but with different programs in their hands. In one, Jesus is Son of God; in another he is Muslim prophet. The Jews messiah is cast in the Muslim script as the dajjal - another name for the Antichrist, the deceiver predicted by Christian tradition. The infidels in one script are the true believers of another. If your neighbor announces that the End had come, you can believe him, even if he utterly misunderstands what is happening.

It makes sense: Christianity's scriptwriters reworked Judaism and Islam rewrote both. David Cook notes that from the start, apocalyptic ideas moved back and forth between the faiths; the global village is older than we realize. Some of the early spokesmen of Islamic apocalyptic thinking were converted Jews and Christians; they arrived with histories of the future in their saddlebags.

What's more, a story's end is when the truth comes out, the deceived realize their mistake. The deep grievance at the start of both Christianity and Islam is that the Jews refused the new faith - so the Jews must appear in both religion's drama of the End, to be punished or recognize their error.

And the setting of the End is also shared. The crucial events take place in or near Jerusalem. After all, the script began with the Hebrew prophets, for whom Jerusalem was the center not only of their world but of God's, and everyone else worked from their material. Isaiah's announcement of the End of Days comes directly after he laments that the "faithful city [has] become a harlot." That sets up the contrast: In the perfected age, " the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the top of the mountains" and "out of Zion shall go forth the law." The messiah's task is to end the Jews' exile and reestablish David's kingdom - in his capital.

Christianity reworked that vision. Jesus, says the New Testament, was not only crucified and resurrected in the city, he ascended to heaven from the Mount of Olives - and promised to return there. Without the Jews' national tie to the actual Jerusalem, Christians could allegorized such verses. The Jerusalem of the end could be built on other shores, and countless millennial movements have arisen elsewhere. But the literal meaning is there to be reclaimed, particularly in a time of literalism, such as our own.

Most striking of all is Islam's adoption of the same setting. For Muslim apocalyptic believers, Jerusalem is the capital in the messianic age. At the end of time, say Muslim traditions, the Ka'ba - Islam's central shrine in Mecca - will come to Jerusalem. The implication is that in Islam, speaking of the apocalypse at least hints at Jerusalem - and a struggle over Jerusalem alludes to the last battle.

Curiously, academic experts often say that Islam assigns scant space to apocalypse. In the religion's early centuries, believers attributed a vast body of contradictory traditions to the Prophet. Early Islamic scholars winnowed the sayings, establishing which were most reliable. meanwhile, Islam became the faith of an empire, and it was time to talk softly of overthrowing the given order. So the authors of books containing the "most accurate" traditions, the pinnacle of the canon, said little of the End. "High" Islam appears un-apocalyptic. [Gorenberg]

Thus, it becomes quite sensible to the followers of this cult to promote the well-being of Israel with money, arms, and other kinds of support, so that the Temple can be rebuilt, never mind that it is going to be desecrated and that Israel is supposed, in the scenario, to be utterly destroyed in the process of establishing God's kingdom!

According to Gorenberg, between a fifth and a quarter of all Americans are evangelicals. In Latin America, the number of Protestants subscribing to these beliefs has climbed from 5 million in the late sixties to 40 million in the mid-nineties. "One reason for the rise [was] the campaign of John Paul II against the leftist faith of liberation theology. Denied a tie between religion and hope for a better world, Latin American Catholics have been more open to the catastrophic hopes of premillennialism."

South Korea's apocalyptically oriented Protestants have gone from 15 percent of the total population to 40 percent during the seventies and eighties.

The old stereotypical image of the apocalyptic believers as tramps on street corners carrying signs saying "The End is Nigh" no longer stands. Today's adherents of the Rapture theory wear suits in boardrooms and stride the corridors of power.

The question we need to ask is: Why does faith look for a finale? What power does this idea hold over humanity. Why can't modern people put the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the museum of religious concepts alongside Zeus and Ishtar?

Gorenberg proposes a partial answer: A true believer in God (be he Jew, Christian or Muslim), is highly invested in both the power and GOODness of his god. God MUST be good. And for an individual raised in a particular faith, who had no choice about his social, cultural and religious conditioning, this necessity for god to be good has very deep roots in his or her psyche. Being convinced that the "faith of our fathers" is GOOD is natural and powerful.

BUT, here is the rub: bad things happen in this world that do NOT fit with the concept of a GOOD and All-Powerful god. And so, to be a believer means to exist in a state of dissonance that must be resolved.

Human beings struggle with this problem daily; trying to find answers that will solve the issues of death, disease and destruction; trying to fit their experiences with their faith in a Good God. Gorenberg gives an example of a clergyman who preaches endless sermons about men whose lives were saved because they gave to charity when the fact in the background was that his own daughter died at the age of twenty of cancer.

And so, the most daring idea of all is to assert that the world is broken and needs to be fixed. Of course, God MUST know that the world is broken, and being Good, he plans to fix it someday. And so, the answer of the millennialist is "desperately honest": there IS something wrong with the creation of the Good and All-Powerful God, and in the same moment, the despair about the situation is rejected because God is going to make everything alright.

Naturally, your vision of the repair will depend on what you think is broken. [...]

The picture of God's kingdom follows accordingly, but there is also the matter of how badly broken things are, of whether God acting through men and women is already fixing the world, or whether there is no choice but to wait for the Repairman to come to smash and break down and rebuild the world the way He always meant it to be. [Gorenberg]

Throughout their growing up years, people are told that when something good happens, that is god acting, and when something bad happens, that is Satan who got in the door because the person's faith wasn't strong enough. With that kind of conditioning, it's no wonder that people are powerfully invested in maintaining the "goodness" of their god. To insist that a messiah or saviour is "yet to come" is, essentially, a rejection of NOW, of Response-ability. The Millennialists hang on to their beliefs for dear life because the alternatives are to either accept the world as it is, and reject the "good god hypothesis," or to abandon the world completely, both of which would bankrupt their faith.

The power of Millennialism is enormous! The problem that the religions face, however, is how to keep that hope burning, keep dangling that carrot, without letting it explode in their faces.

Because, when people give signs to know when the Time has come, and others discover that the signs have been fulfilled and that the day is near, and other say the day IS here, the irresistible force of enthusiasm inevitably smashed into immovable reality: The world doesn't end.

And it's nothing but rivers of blood everywhere. Every time.

"God does not look on all of His children the same way," said Dr. John Walvoord, president of Dallas Theological Seminary, mentor to Hal Lindsey.

God, he tells me, had plans for Jews and Christians, but not for the others - unless they became Christians. God, he said, had a heavenly plan for Christians, and an earthly plan for Jews.

And, I ask, the earthly plan for Jews?

"To re-create Israel." [Halsell]

What is not widely reported, but is well know among these fundamentalists circles is that, once Israel has done what the Christians want it to do: re-create itself and re-build the Temple, then they are finished. Those that do not convert will be destroyed. It's that simple. Christians can love and support Jews NOW, encouraging them and praising them and sending them money and everything they need to "get the job done." But, once that is accomplished, do not think for a minute that this love and support will continue as long as the Jews remain Jews.

In early 1999, members of a Denver, Colorado dispensationalist group called Concerned Christians were arrested by Israeli police, handcuffed, jailed as common criminals and deported back to the States. Israeli police accused them of planning a "bloody apocalypse" to hasten the Second Coming of Christ. It was suggested that they plotted the destruction of Jerusalem's most holy Islamic shrine.

In a fervent wish to replace the mosque with a Jewish temple, the Denver cult members are no different from other dispensationalists who believe God wants this done. As I learned from Christians on a Falwell-sponsored tour, they hold this idea quite sacred. A retired Army major named Owen, who lives in northern Nebraska, seems typical.

I spent much time with Owen, a widower, who is slightly built and about five feet, five inches tall. He stands erect and has a pleasant smile. Well dressed and with a full head of sandy hair, he looks younger than his age. He had served in Europe during World War II and later for a number . of years in Japan. One day, as I am walking alongside Owen, our group moves toward the old walled city. As we enter Damascus Gate and pass along cobblestone corridors, I easily imagine Jesus having walked a similar route. In the midst of a rapidly changing environment, the old walled city, guarding layer-upon layer of history and conflict, provides the stellar attraction for tourists and remains home for 25,000 people. As the Palestinian Muslim Mahmud had told me earlier, throughout its long history, Jerusalem has been predominantly and overwhelmingly Arab.

We approach Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, which encloses the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque — sites which I had visited earlier with Mahmud. Both these edifices, on raised platform grounds, generally are called simply "the mosque" and represent Jerusalem's most holy Islamic shrine.

We stand on lower ground below the mosque and face the Western Wall, a 200-foot-high and 1,600-foot-long block of huge white stones, believed to be the only remnant of the second Jewish temple.

"There—" our guide said, pointing upward toward the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque — "we will build our Third Temple. We have all the plans drawn for the temple. Even the building materials are ready. They are hidden in a secret place. There are several shops where Israelis work, making the artifacts we will use in the new temple. One Israeli is weaving the pure linen that will be used for garments of the priests of the temple." He pauses, then adds:

"In a religious school called Yeshiva Ateret Cohanim ­the Crown of the Priests — located near where we are standing, rabbis are teaching young men how to make animal sacrifice."

A woman in our group, Mary Lou, a computer specialist, seems startled to hear the Israelis want to return to the rites of the old Solomonic sacrificial altar of the temple.

"You are going back to animal sacrifice?" she asks. "Why?"

" It was done in the First and Second Temples," our Israeli guide says. "And we do not wish to change the practices. Our sages teach that neglecting to study the details of temple service is a sin."

Leaving the site, I remark to Owen that our Israeli guide had said a temple must be rebuilt on the Dome of the Rock site. But he said nothing about the Muslim shrines.

"They will be destroyed," Owen tells me. "You know it's in the Bible that the temple must be rebuilt. And there's no other place for it except on that one area. You find that in the law of Moses."

Did it seem possible, I ask Owen, that the Scripture about building a temple would relate to the time in which it was written — rather than to events in the current era?

"No, it is related to our era," Owen says. "The Bible tells us that in the End Times the Jews will have renewed their animal sacrifice."

In other words, I repeat, a temple must be built so that the Jews can resume their animal sacrifice?

"Yes," said Owen, quoting Ezekiel 44:29 to prove his point.

Is Owen convinced that Jews, aided by Christians, should destroy the mosque, build a temple and reinstate the killing of animals in the temple — all in order to please God?

"Yes," he replies. "That's the way it has to be. It's in the Bible."

And does the building of the temple, I ask, fit into any time sequence?

" Yes. We think it will be the next step in the events leading to the return of our Lord. As far as its being a large temple, the Bible doesn't tell us that. All it tells us is that there will be a renewal of sacrifices. And Jews can do that in a relatively small building."

Isn't it atavistic, I ask, to go back to animal sacrifice? And what about a multitude concerned with animal rights in our modern age?

"But we don't care what they say. It's what the Bible says that's important," Owen stresses. "The Bible predicts a rebuilding of a temple. Now the people who are going to do it are not Christians but Orthodox Jews. Of course the Old Testament made out a very specific formula for what the Jews must follow regarding animal sacrifice. They can't carry it out without a temple. They were observing animal sacrifice until 70 A.D. And when they have a temple they will have some Orthodox Jews who will kill the sheep or oxen in the temple, as a sacrifice to God."

As Owen talks of reinstating animal sacrifice — a step he feels necessary for his own spiritual maturity — he seems to block from his awareness the fact that Muslim shrines stand on the site where he says God demands a temple be built.

That evening, after dinner, Owen and I take a long walk. Again, I voice my concerns about the dangers inherent in a plot to destroy Islam's holy shrines.

" Christians need not do it , " Owen says, repeating what he told me earlier. "But I am sure the shrines will be destroyed."

But, I insist, this can well trigger World War III.

" Yes, that' s right. We are near the End Times, as I have said. Orthodox Jews will blow up the mosque and this will provoke the Muslim world. It will be a cataclysmic holy war with Israel. This will force the Messiah to intervene." Owen speaks as calmly, as softly as if telling me there'd be rain tomorrow.

"Yes," he adds, as we return to our hotel. "There definitely must be a third temple."

Back home in Washington, D.C.... I talked with Terry Reisenhoover, a native of Oklahoma, who told me he raised money to help Jewish terrorists destroy the Muslim shrines.

Reisenhoover — short, rotund, balding and a Born Again Christian blessed with a fine tenor voice — told me he frequently was invited during the Reagan administration to White House gatherings of dispensationalists, where he was a featured soloist.

Reisenhoover spoke freely to me of his plans to move tax-free dollars from American donors to Israel. In 1985 he served as chairman of the American Forum for Jewish-Christian Cooperation, being assisted by Douglas Krieger as executive director, and an American rabbi, David Ben-Ami, closely linked with Ariel Sharon.

Additionally, Reisenhoover served as chairman of the board for the Jerusalem Temple Foundation, which has as its sole purpose the rebuilding of a temple on the site of the present Muslim shrine. Reisenhoover chose as the foundation's international secretary Stanley Goldfoot. Goldfoot emigrated in the 1930s from South Africa to Palestine and became a member of the notorious Stern gang, which shocked the world with its massacres of Arab men, women and children. Such figures as David Ben-Gurion denounced the gang as Nazis and outlawed them.

Goldfoot, according to the Israeli newspaper Davar, placed a bomb on July 22, 1946, in Jerusalem's King David Hotel that destroyed a wing of the hotel housing the British Mandate secretariat and part of the military headquarters. The operation killed some 100 British and other officials and, as the Jewish militants planned, hastened the day the British left Palestine.

"He's a very solid, legitimate terrorist," Reisenhoover said admiringly of Goldfoot. "He has the qualifications for clearing a site for the temple."

Reisenhoover also said that while Christian militants are acting on religious fervor, their cohort Goldfoot does not believe in God or sacred aspects of the Old Testament. For Goldfoot, it's a matter of Israeli control over all of Palestine.

"It is all a matter of sovereignty," Goldfoot deputy Yisrael Meida, a member of the ultra right-wing Tehiya party, explained. "He who controls the Temple Mount, controls Jerusalem. And he who controls Jerusalem, controls the land of Israel."

Reisenhoover told me he had sponsored Goldfoot on several trips to the United States, where Goldfoot spoke on religious radio and TV stations and to church congregations. Reisenhoover helped me secure a tape cassette of a talk Goldfoot made in Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California. In soliciting donations for a temple, Goldfoot did not tell the Christians about plans to destroy the mosque.

Reisenhoover had given me several names of persons who knew Stanley Goldfoot, among them George Giacumakis, who for many years headed the Institute for Holy Land Studies, a long established American-run evangelical school for studies in archaeology and theology. On one of my visits to Jerusalem, I made an appointment with Giacumakis, a Greek American with dark eyes and cultivated charm.

Might he, I asked, after we had visited casually over coffee, help me arrange an interview with Goldfoot?

"Oh, no," Giacumakis responded, dropping his head into both hands, as one does on hearing a disaster. "You don't want to meet him. He goes back to the Irgun terrorist group!" Raising his head and waving an arm toward the King David Hotel, he added, "Stanley Goldfoot was in charge of that operation. He will not stop at anything. His idea is to rebuild the temple, and if that means violence, then he will not hesitate to use violence."

Giacumakis paused, then assured me that while he himself did not believe in violence, "If they do destroy the mosque and the temple is there, that does not mean I will not support it."

It was also Terry Reisenhoover who helped me get acquainted with the Reverend James E. DeLoach, a leading figure in the huge Second Baptist Church of Houston. After we had talked a few times on the telephone, DeLoach volunteered he would be in Washington, D.C. He came by my apartment, at my invitation, and I set my tape recording running — with his permission.

"I know Stanley very very well. We're good friends," he said. "He's a very strong person."

Of Reisenhoover, DeLoach said, "He's very talented — at raising money. He's raising $100 million. A lot of this has gone to paying lawyers who gained freedom for 29 Israelis who attempted to destroy the mosque. It cost us quite a lot of money to get their freedom."

And how, I ask, did he and the others funnel the money from U.S. donors to the aid of the Jewish terrorists?

"We've provided support for the Ateret Cohanim Yeshiva."

The Jewish school, I asked, that prepares students to make animal sacrifice?

"Yes," he agreed.

And Christian donors are paying for that?

"It takes a lot of training," he said. Then, quite proudly: "I've just hosted in my Houston home two fine young Israelis who study how to do the animal sacrifice in the temple to be built." [Grace Halsell]

Indeed, the Torah devotes a lot of words to animal sacrifice, yet Judaism has survived without such barbarity for nearly two thousand years.

Sometime during the Roman siege of Jerusalem, Yohanan ben Zakkai escaped the city and established a new center of Jewish learning in the town of Yavneh. Ben Zakkai was a revolutionary posing as protector of tradition. Before, the ram's horn had been blown on Rosh Hashanah only in the Temple; he ruled that it could be blown elsewhere. He did not say the same of sacrifices. His successors instituted prayers that took the place of burnt offerings, in part by praying for the Temple's restoration. [...]

In nostalgia, Jews idealized the Temple; it stood for a lost utopia where God and human beings enjoyed a perfect relationship, a lost childhood. Its destruction symbolized loss of innocence. Judaism became a religion of the intellect, with study as the central religious act. It superseded sacrifices by remembering them. The modern denominations of Reform and Conservative Judaism altered their liturgy to diminish that memory. Except that sometimes a culture's old memory can come suddenly back to life, like a recessive gene that has waited generations.

For its part, Christianity regarded the razing of the Temple as proof that God had moved his covenant from the old Israel who'd rejected Jesus to the new Israel of the Church. Second-century Christian philosopher Justin Martyr lumped sacrifices together with the Sabbath, circumcision, and all the other commandments that, he said, were irrelevant after Jesus. Besides, Christians argued, Jesus' crucifixion was the last atonement by blood - a thesis that both accepted the idea of sacrifice (even human sacrifice) and rejected it. [Gorenberg]

A pamphlet for tourists tells us:

The beauty and tranquility of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem attracts thousands of visitors every year. Some believe it was the site of the Temple of Solomon, peace be upon him ... or the site of the Second Temple ... although no documented historical or archaeological evidence exists to support this.

There is something to be said for this as the reader will know from reading "Who Wrote the Bible." Archaeologists have been digging up the "Holy Land" since the nineteenth century and, so far, there has been not a shred of evidence to support the "Temple of Solomon" story, nor much of anything else in the Bible "as history."

Nevertheless, Temple Mount IS standing there, taking up nearly a sixth of the walled Old City of Jerusalem. It is certainly true that Herod built a Temple in the vicinity that replaced the earlier temple built by Jews returning from exile in the fifth century BC. Those, in turn, claimed that they were building the Temple on the spot where the former "Temple of Solomon" had stood. As we discover in Who Wrote the Bible, the so-called "Temple of Solomon" was very likely a pagan Temple that had existed for some time in Jerusalem and had fallen into disrepair and was restored by King Hezekiah as part of his religious reform project.

But, even the Temple Mount is a matter of stories and not facts. Medieval philosopher, Moses Maimonides says that not only was Adam born where the altar stood, but Cain and Able made their sacrifices there and Noah did the same after the flood (never mind that he supposedly landed on Mt. Ararat in Turkey). Abraham was told to go to "Mount Moriah" to sacrifice his son Isaac and Mount Moriah is where the Second Book of Chronicles informs us Solomon built the Temple. As noted in Who Wrote the Bible, Second Chronicles is a late rewrite of Jewish royal history and it is altogether likely that the redactor took the name "Moriah" and assigned it to where the Temple that was refurbished stood in order to affirm its sanctity.

Another curious point that Gorenberg makes is the fact that the word "Jerusalem" occurs hundreds of times in the Bible, but NOT in the Torah. The closest is "Salem", possibly an early, pagan name for the city. Archaeologists tell us that Jerusalem was a sacred center long before the alleged time of David and Solomon. The Temple was supposedly built on a "threshing floor," which may indicate that the religion practiced in the region, and the temple that actually stood there already, was devoted to fertility gods and goddesses.

. . .

In his 1996 book "Beginning of the End: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Coming Antichrist", Texas pastor John Hagee recalls sitting with his father when news came over the radio that Israel was a new nation. His father told him: "We have just heard the most important prophetic message that will ever be delivered until Jesus Christ returns to earth." For the millennialists, the Balfour Declaration had been exciting, but Israel's "birth" produced absolute frenzies of apocalyptic ecstasy. The prophecies of the Last Days were coming TRUE!

Except for stories I'd heard in my childhood Sunday School, I knew little or nothing about a Jerusalem where people live everyday lives - where they are born, got to school, get married, have children, at times laugh and celebrate, at other moments cry and mourn. Then, one day, moving to Jerusalem, I began to experience the realities of a people who have always lived there.

I walk the cobblestone streets with an Arab Muslim, Mahmud Ali Hassan, who was born in Jerusalem, bought his first pair of shoes, got his first shave from a barber, was fitted for his first suit of clothes, was married, saw all his children born and watched them grow up - all in the Old Walled City.

With Mahmud, I walk along narrow corridors within one of the few remaining examples in the world of a completely walled town. The walls stand partially on the foundations of Hadrian's Square, built in A.D. 135. they include remains of earlier walls, those of King Herod in 37 B.C, and Agrippa, A.D. 41, and Saladin, 1187. And finallyt the walls were rebuilt by the Turkish Muslim, Suleiman the Magnificent, in the sixteenth century.

"This Old Walled City throughout its long history has been predominantly inhabited by Arabes," Mahmud tells me. "And Arab markets, Arab homes, and Arab religious sites make up about ninety percent of the Old City.

"As Arabs, we are descendants of an indigenous people, a people who never left Palestine, continually having lived within these old walls," Mahmud continues. "I can trace my forebears back more than ten generations. And in the case of my father and his father and his father, our famili8es have lived in the same house for the past three hundred years." [...]

"This is one of the oldest cities in the world, " Mahmud reminds me. "Arabs called Amorites came here four to five thousand years ago. they established this site as a religious foundation to honor their god. And these early Arab worshippers of a god they called Shalem gave us the name of our Holy City, Jerusalem. Then came others of our forebears, the Canaanites from Canaan. They made Jerusalem an early center of worship of the One God. the Canaanites had a king named Melchizedek, and it is written that he also was a priest of God Most High.

"All this early history predates the arrival of the Hebrews by many centuries... And when a tribe of Hebrews, one of many tribes in the area, did arrive, they stayed for less than 400 years. And they, too, like many before and after, were defeated. And 2000 years ago, they were driven out."

. . .

"As Arabs, as Muslims, our quarrel has never been with Jews as Jews, or with the great religion of Judaism. The places that the Jews and Christians revere as holy, we revere as holy. The prophets the Jews and Christians revere as holy, we revere as holy. My point is that everyone in history has borrowed from what went before. No one or no one group has exclusive rights here. There were countless batttles over Jerusalem. And the Hebrews were in power here only sixty years." [Halsell]

The creation of Israel in 1948 means "a return at last, to the biblical land from which the Jews were driven so many hundreds of years ago... The establishment of the nation of Israel is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy and the very essence of its fulfillment." -- Former president Jimmy Carter

As a Christian, I see the return of Jews to the Holy Land but one sign of the coming of the messianic age in which all humans will enjoy the benefits of an ideal society. -- Former Senator Mark Ha

Published: 25 September 2005
It is a powerful, highly addictive drug openly peddled on street corners and in purpose-made buildings across the country. Suicide bombers get high on it and governments encourage its use. It can be hallucinogenic, destroys lives and, in its strongest doses, start wars.

In an article in this month's respected Prospect magazine, Professor Richard Dawkins, one of Britain's leading scientists, paints an apocalyptic vision of a world addicted to Gerin oil - a drug which works its way into the central nervous system and can cause "dangerous delusions" if used regularly.

Professor Dawkins, who was voted Britain's top public intellectual last year, blames Gerin oil for most of the major atrocities in history, from the Salem witch-hunts to the attacks on 11 September.

He also accuses governments of subsidising schools which have "the specific intention of getting children hooked". The drug does not feature on the Home Office's list of banned substances and is, Professor Dawkins claims, freely available without prescription.

Drug experts have never heard of Gerin oil, nor its scientific moniker, geriniol. And nor should they. Because there is one fact Professor Dawkins fails to mention: no such drug exists. The editor of Prospect magazine, David Goodhart, admitted yesterday that Gerin oil is actually an anagram for religion - something Professor Dawkins, Britain's most well-known atheist, has long railed against.

But Mr Goodhart revealed that he himself was confused by Professor Dawkins' anagram. "He mentioned that there was some kind of anagram when he sent the piece, but I was too thick to get it to begin with," Mr Goodhart said. "Driving in my car the next day it suddenly came to me - 'he's a militant atheist, it must be religion'.

"It has already generated a lively debate. We have had lots of letters on it - quite a few have been from people who feel religion has a legitimate place in the world." One letter writer has turned the tables on Professor Dawkins, referring to him as "Dr Dick Rainwash".

In his article, Professor Dawkins said his inspiration for writing about the "drug" was the reaction of the Bali bomber, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, on hearing he was to be put to death. "This beatific smile, looking forward with unalloyed pleasure to the firing squad, is the smile of a junkie," wrote Dawkins. "Here we have the archetypal mainliner, doped up with hard, unrefined, unadulterated, high-octane Gerin oil."

The article is reminiscent of Chris Morris's satirical Channel 4 programme, Brass Eye, which once convinced politicians and celebrities that a dangerous new drug, "cake", was about to hit Britain. Tory MP, David Amess, was so taken in he asked a question about cake in the House of Commons.

Professor Dawkins - who has written many books on evolution and science, including, most famously, The Selfish Gene - is no stranger to attacks on religion. After the tsunami which hit the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day killed some 300,000 people, Professor Dawkins argued that if there is a God, "he is a terrorist". He pointed out that far more people died in the tragedy than were killed in the attacks on New York and Washington.

He first wrote about Gerin oil in an American secular humanism publication, Free Inquiry, in December 2003. At the end of the article, which appeared in this month's Prospect, the magazine dropped a hint to their readers, pointing out that Professor Dawkins is a "committed atheist". Mr Goodhart said he was confident his readers were clever enough to understand it.

It is a powerful, highly addictive drug openly peddled on street corners and in purpose-made buildings across the country. Suicide bombers get high on it and governments encourage its use. It can be hallucinogenic, destroys lives and, in its strongest doses, start wars.

In an article in this month's respected Prospect magazine, Professor Richard Dawkins, one of Britain's leading scientists, paints an apocalyptic vision of a world addicted to Gerin oil - a drug which works its way into the central nervous system and can cause "dangerous delusions" if used regularly.

Professor Dawkins, who was voted Britain's top public intellectual last year, blames Gerin oil for most of the major atrocities in history, from the Salem witch-hunts to the attacks on 11 September.

He also accuses governments of subsidising schools which have "the specific intention of getting children hooked". The drug does not feature on the Home Office's list of banned substances and is, Professor Dawkins claims, freely available without prescription.

Drug experts have never heard of Gerin oil, nor its scientific moniker, geriniol. And nor should they. Because there is one fact Professor Dawkins fails to mention: no such drug exists. The editor of Prospect magazine, David Goodhart, admitted yesterday that Gerin oil is actually an anagram for religion - something Professor Dawkins, Britain's most well-known atheist, has long railed against.

But Mr Goodhart revealed that he himself was confused by Professor Dawkins' anagram. "He mentioned that there was some kind of anagram when he sent the piece, but I was too thick to get it to begin with," Mr Goodhart said. "Driving in my car the next day it suddenly came to me - 'he's a militant atheist, it must be religion'.
"It has already generated a lively debate. We have had lots of letters on it - quite a few have been from people who feel religion has a legitimate place in the world." One letter writer has turned the tables on Professor Dawkins, referring to him as "Dr Dick Rainwash".

In his article, Professor Dawkins said his inspiration for writing about the "drug" was the reaction of the Bali bomber, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, on hearing he was to be put to death. "This beatific smile, looking forward with unalloyed pleasure to the firing squad, is the smile of a junkie," wrote Dawkins. "Here we have the archetypal mainliner, doped up with hard, unrefined, unadulterated, high-octane Gerin oil."

The article is reminiscent of Chris Morris's satirical Channel 4 programme, Brass Eye, which once convinced politicians and celebrities that a dangerous new drug, "cake", was about to hit Britain. Tory MP, David Amess, was so taken in he asked a question about cake in the House of Commons.

Professor Dawkins - who has written many books on evolution and science, including, most famously, The Selfish Gene - is no stranger to attacks on religion. After the tsunami which hit the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day killed some 300,000 people, Professor Dawkins argued that if there is a God, "he is a terrorist". He pointed out that far more people died in the tragedy than were killed in the attacks on New York and Washington.

He first wrote about Gerin oil in an American secular humanism publication, Free Inquiry, in December 2003. At the end of the article, which appeared in this month's Prospect, the magazine dropped a hint to their readers, pointing out that Professor Dawkins is a "committed atheist". Mr Goodhart said he was confident his readers were clever enough to understand it.

This drug must be eradicated, ruthlessly and NOW.

These little zio-neo-shits need to be laid bare and exposed for all the world and get thrashed like infants.

These "jews" do not fit the stated description. They are not semites, they are not the hebrew people. Being jewish is a religous matter independant of race, except the Jews these askanaz fakes feel superior to and treat worse than animals. Those etheopian Jews ( original, slaves from Egypt) " well we don't" want you niggers in the Jewish homeland. Maybe if you give us something...otherwise die in that ethnic cleansing genocide thing over there we don't care" Funnier still semite is a European ignorant orientalist term which represents some of the worst of elitist imperial Europe's one time, and some what current view of the rest of the world. And the Jewish love affair with the word and accusation anti-semmite is like them cutting themselves with their enemies weapons.

The supposition that "anti-Semitism" refers ONLY to one nation betrays a lack of understanding of the etymology of the word. Consulting a standard dictionary will tell anyone that it originated in the 18th Century and gained prominence in use in the late 19th Century in Europe. This was, of course, when there were no Moslems or other nonEuropeans to whom the term could be applied, those qualifying as being descendents of Shem residing in Europe at the time. Thus, the specificity of the term discriminated against and excluded those outside the European realm of influence. Once the gates to Vienna were opened, the word then applied to all peoples previously discounted and ignored. The restricted and biased use of the word betrays a narrowness of perspective and a failure to recognise the larger population who should qualify and benefit from policies derived from and devoted to identifying the maligning of a certain group of people.

The whole act seems all very good and impressive to you know a child but once you give it a bit of thought, how fake and god damn stupid can you be.Hundreds of years of protest marches gatherings have accomplished what? Absolutely nothing, if anything makes things worse because instead of being angry and ready for action they can take comfort that they marched on Washington and made a difference parading their sorrow cowardly lazy fleshy sacks with other like minded sorry bastards so they can feel good about themselves for doing and risking JACK SQUAT! Burn DC down,storm the white house, and scare the shit out of some people other wise shut up and go away and take your nasal pathetic chants with you and don't come back till you actualy can do something besides annoy every one! Why do I feel like Carlin all of a sudden?

Worried? Please these idiots can't even read or find themselves or any where else on a world map. They are just a bunch of suckers being bled dry by all people.
Dumb bastards should be able to look in the mirror to see all the proof they need to for evolution...
The manipulators may be worth looking at- but don't for a second think Jewish zionists are doing anything more than using and stealing from these ignorant folk. Would more likely they accept living with muslim arabs, they know how crazy some christians out there are. History authored by them can't even hide that.

Question: If Semites include "Hebrews and Arabs," why is anti-Semitism just "hostility toward or discrimination against Jews" instead of all Semites?

Anti-semitism appears to have been chosen to connect Jews (Ashkenazi and other converts) who do not have an ancestral tie to Palestine to that region. In other words, by utilizing the term anti-semitism, Jews who descended from the Khazar empire or converted from other religions could associate themselves with the truly semitic people of Palestine and thus be able to claim the land. Some historians believe many of the Ashkenazi descended from the Khazar Empire, which was composed of individuals who converted to Judaism between the 7th and 9th centuries AD. Some have referred to these people as representing the 13th tribe. Others of course view such theories as anti-semitic. Of course we at this site understand the term "anit-semitic" is a bogus slur and should not be given any credence by a thinking person. The correct term for attacks against Judaism and Jews should be anti-Jewish.

LA Anti-War March, ONE MORE PHOTO, September 28, 2005

Marcus - thanks for sharing! The first panorama is amazing. Do you have a larger version of this available suitable for printing as a poster size (or can I purchase one from you)? Thanks, RM.

(Attached is a photo I took, more to come)

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Hi Ryan,
Thank you, please post the file names of the images that you want. Also post your email address, and I will send you the higher definition images to you.

Marcus,

Thanks so much for your reply. I'd love to receive a high-resolution copy of 392.jpg (the first crowd shot). My email address is floormaster@gmail.com

Thanks,
Ryan

(Attached is another photo I took at the rally)

Photo