The Yoke of Zion
By Israel Shamir
A
small band of determined warriors takes on, and fights
off the mightiest army of the region: this is the stuff
history is made of. Thermopylae , move over - Bint Jbeil
is coming! Bishop Philip of Antioch has compared the
levelling of this small Lebanese town with the
destruction of Stalingrad , but these cities are also
comparable by the courage of their defenders. Seldom is
a generation able to witness such a shining example of
valour: for three long weeks a handful of Hezbollah
warriors -- two thousand by the most optimistic count --
fought to a standstill ten, twenty, thirty times more
numerous Israeli troops. Forty years ago, Israelis
defeated three armies in one week, but now the invader’s
charm has worn off, or has passed over to the
vanquished. In today’s somewhat feminine victim-centred
narrative, suffering attracts more attention than
masculine gallantry. Thus the Qana massacre has
overshadowed something more significant: the steadfast
resistance of the Lebanese fighters. But Andromache’s
sorrow should not obscure Hector’s courage: Hezbollah’s
deeds deserve to be immortalised by poets.
Why the war? Leave the small details to a future
Plutarch; this is another round in the battle for
Palestine. Supported and
supplied by their captive empire, the US , the Jews had
all the weapons, all the ammunition, all the diplomatic
support, when hubris-drunk they drove into disarmed and
starved Gaza to kill off its last resisters and impose
the Yoke of Zion. Their invasion had been prepared by a
year-long siege and incessant shelling; they were
cock-sure they could devour Gaza at will. And indeed,
everyone kept mum: the Egyptians traded the glory of the
Ramadan War for greenbacks, the sons of Hejaz and Nejd
were too busy serving oil at the pump, and the princes
of the Gulf cared only for their falcons. The Jews felt
secure as they stooped to finish off Gaza : who would
disturb the lion of Judah roaring at his prey? And a
tiny force from the Mount Lebanon said: we will. They
attacked the all-powerful Jews; the hobbit pierced the
sinew of Nazgul as he stooped to kill. Roused from its
prey, the Israeli army turned north and lashed with all
its might at the Hezbollah fighters. But they stood
fast.
This was
most unexpected. The Israelis were used to killing or
dispersing weaponless untrained Palestinians. Instead,
the fighters of Sayyed Nasrallah dug their heels into
the bare hills of Bint Jbeil and gave battle. If they
were destroyed quickly, Israeli generals would lead
their victorious troops to Damascus and Teheran before
turning back and despoiling Palestine of its priceless
jewel, Haram al Sharif. This still could happen, but the
chances have been diminished by the steadfastness of
Hezbollah.
More
importantly, Hezbollah has refused to cease fire as long
as Israel occupies the land of Lebanon . This daring
step undermined the whole strategy of Zionists. They had
planned to occupy the South and wait there until an
international (or NATO) force entered to do their job
for them. Hezbollah’s decision lacks one detail: any
cease fire must extend to Palestine , as well. It is
inconceivable that Lebanon will lay down its arms while
Gaza is besieged and Nablus is ravished.
Israeli PM
Ehud Olmert said: “We have changed the Middle East .” I
do not know whether all the Middle East has changed, but
in Israel we witness a great change. Until now, only a
few just men and women of Israel called for their
government to desist from its their aggression against
Gaza and Lebanon . But the Katyusha rain changed the
minds of many. At first carried away by the arrogance of
their generals, Israelis have now discovered the heavy
price of war. Early complaints about the army’s failure
to deliver have given place to critique of the policy
itself. They have begun to understand that time is not
on their side.
The
now-subservient regimes of neighbouring countries can
fall any minute or remove the Yoke of Zion. Their rulers
were led to believe in Jewish superiority, and that is
why they chose to condemn “imprudent” Hezbollah. But now
that their people see that even a small force of
determined fighters can beat the enemy, they find no
justification for the cowardly behaviour of their
rulers. It can lead to revolution, for King Faruk was
removed by young officers of Falujah fame who were
disappointed by his weakness in 1948.
Neil
MacFarquhar
reports in the NYT (28.7.06): “At the
onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting
with
Saudi Arabia, slammed
Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war,
providing what the United States and
Israel took as a wink and a nod to
continue the fight.
Now, with
hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out
against the vaunted Israeli military for more than two
weeks, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world
is surging behind the organization, transforming the
Shiite groups leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a
folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.
The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah II of Jordan,
who were initially more worried about the rising power
of Shiite Iran, Hezbollahs main sponsor, are scrambling
to distance themselves from Washington
.”
The report
sees popular opinion, “the Arab street,” as the vehicle
for change; but the change can come from above, too. The
cruel bombardment of Beirut and of all of Lebanon was
supposed to frighten the Arab nations into obedience;
instead, it convinced the rich and powerful Arabs that
as long as the Jews run the writ in the Middle East ,
their own riches and power can be taken from them
anytime by will of a Jewish general. Beirut was
peaceful, Beirut agreed to expel Syrians, Beirut was the
capital of the most pro-Western state, and yet this did
not save the city from Jewish -- not even vengeance, for
there was nothing to avenge -- but arbitrary
heavy-handedness. The Arabs in power ask whether the
Jewish state can be a peaceful neighbour at all, or
whether (as the Iranian President Ahmadinejad says) it
is bellicose by nature and must be dealt with as the
Crusader Kingdom once was.
Indeed, the
Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem existed longer than the
Jewish state, and probably would have lasted for
centuries, but for its innate aggressiveness and its
preparedness to serve as a bridgehead for European
invasions. The turning point in the Crusaders’ fortunes
took place some 850 years ago during the Second Crusade,
which bore an uncanny resemblance to the Second Lebanese
War. By that time, the Arab nations were inured to the
invincibility of the Crusaders; sheer arrogance of power
led the Crusaders to march on Damascus -- their
peaceful, complacent and hedonist neighbour, the least
belligerent among small independent and much-divided
Arab states, a Lebanon of the 12th century.
At first, the Crusaders ran into guerrilla resistance of
the then-Hezbollah, and lost a lot of soldiers. When
they besieged the city, the ruler of Damascus was forced
to ask for the help of his neighbour Nureddin, the
Ahmadinejad of his day; an army of Nureddin’s drew close
and the Franks had to retreat in haste.
The Arab
neighbours learned two things: (1) submission and
complacency can’t guarantee their peace, for the
Crusader state is a Damocles’ Sword forever hanging
above their heads; and (2) Crusaders can be defeated.
Out of the Second Crusade came Saladin, a nephew of
Nureddin, who united Syria and Egypt and eventually
defeated the Crusaders at Qurn Hittin. Now the same two
lessons have been delivered to the Arabs, courtesy of
the IDF. Is a new Saladin on the way?
II
But the
Jews may yet face another danger caused by their
assertiveness. They relate to themselves the fiery
prophesy of Rev. 19: 15 “Out
of his mouth goes a sharp sword, with it he should smite
the goyim, and he shall shepherd them with a rod of
iron; and he is crushing with his feet the grapes of
Gods wrath.” They take it
so seriously that their massacre of Qana (120 butchered
refugees) was named the Grapes of Wrath. These features
are not the most endearing; and not only Arabs object to
being shepherded by an iron rod.
The US pays
heavily for this Jewish fun. A poor American may hate to
think about the fact that while he has no medical
insurance, his government has to pay tribute to rich
Israel . The average American filling his average car
may dislike paying for support of the Jewish state,
since before the Neo-Cohns got into power in the
Administration gas was much, much cheaper. A wealthy and
worldly American may feel vexed that he is not welcome
wherever he goes from Paris to Istanbul - as he was
before the Yoke of Zion.
An
easy-going American may dislike the fact that he cant
cuss out a Jewish cop without reading
about it in the New York Times. A believing
American may be upset that
he can’t mention Christ unless he is
ready to be summoned to a court hearing. An honest
American or European may be annoyed by their hypocrisy:
It is not enough that
they push for war, they also
blame others for it. It is not enough
that they kill children in droves, they also preach
about the immense value of human life.
A
religious, Bible-thumping American may remember the
prophecy of Ezekiel, 22 who said to the leaders of
Israel in the name of the Lord: “You have become guilty
in your blood that you have shed; everyone among you,
putting out his full force to shed blood” -- that is,
the blood of innocent Palestinians and Lebanese; Ezekiel
also prophesied the Zionist Gathering of Jews, and that
it would lead to a major disaster for Zionists: “the
house of Israel has become dross to me; therefore I will
gather you into the midst of Jerusalem, and blow upon
you in the fire of my wrath, and you shall be melted in
its midst, and you shall know that I, the Lord, have
poured out my fury upon you.” The Israelis have used
oppression, and have committed robbery, and have wronged
the poor and needy; indeed, they have oppressed the
gentiles wrongfully, and therefore I have consumed them
with the fire of my wrath; their own way have I rewarded
upon their heads, said the Lord God.
An American
politician, maybe even an American president, may get
tired by the Jewish Lobby’s endless need to demand
sympathy or to protest an outrage; by keeping his on his
toes, by their ideological censorship and party
discipline, by their blackmailing habits, by their fat
pockets and grip on media, by the Damocles’ Sword they
hang constantly over his head.
Moreover,
an American or a European who today calls himself a Jew
may wonder whether he has much in common with the people
whose
poets call upon their soldiers to “Storm
on Lebanon and Gaza, and plow it and sow it with salt,
raze it down, let no human being remain alive/ Turn them
into a desert, rubble, a valley of mess, unpopulated/
Save your nation and drop bombs / On villages and
cities, their collapsing houses do shell / Kill them,
shed their blood, turn their lives into living hell /.”
He may give
thought as to whether he wishes to be a
secret weapon of Israel in the words of
Prime Minister Olmert who said: “Arab weapons, even when
they hurt us, are nothing like the powerful, secret
weapon we possess: The Jewish people? across the world,
and the special feeling of love and mutual commitment
that prevails between all Jews, regardless of where they
are.” Instead, he might just stop considering himself a
Jew and melt into the general populace, as millions have
done before him.
A Jewish
friend of mine wrote: “I have asked a number of my
friends in the US whether they think the Zionist mantra
retains its power, and they agree it does not. The lobby
does not, I think, have a bright future - that is why
its agents have faced prosecution. Even if their lock on
Congress persists for some time, their hold on American
opinion must now diminish. I believe Lenny Brenner when
he argues that young Jews are deserting Judaism and
Zionism in droves.”
Israelis,
i.e. dwellers of Palestine who consider themselves
Jewish, may also contemplate whether they want to fight
and support the ideological Yoke of Zion which brings
them only hatred from outside and poverty from within.
Instead of living in economic prosperity and in harmony
with our neighbours, the Yoke of Zion turns us into
impoverished cannon fodder.
And after
all, Americans and Europeans may just get bored with the
guys that endlessly preach to others and are never
willing to hearken to others’ views. Even Germans may
one day kick their masochist habit of endless
repentance. The Yoke of Zion will be gone, for this Yoke
is nothing but shared belief in Jewish superiority. And
the perfectly harmless Jews will have to learn and be
ordinary citizens of their countries, without special
access to presidents, bank coffers and TV screens.
(Language
editing Ken Freeland)