Bartholomew's Notes

From the Nairobi Standard:

[A] planned visit to the country by renegade former Roman Catholic Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo of Zambia is set to cause ripples within the local church that is grappling with the problem of priests leaving the church to marry.

Milingo is due in the country later this month to ordain three former priests as bishops of the Married Priests Now, a movement he founded after being excommunicated from the Roman Church in 2006.

A report from the Catholic Information Service for Africa adds:

The Married Priests Now movement, led by Father Daniel Kisomo formerly of the diocese of Machakos told CISA that their prelature is formed according to Canon Law Para 294-297.

“Ours is the Catholic Prelature of St Peter and Paul and we are within the Universal Roman Catholic Church,” said the former priest who is set to be ordained as the group’s first bishop in Kenya.” He, however, did not state the date and venue of the much hyped ordination which he claims will be presided over by excommunicated Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo.

As I’ve blogged previously, Milingo – formerly known for his strong views on demons and exorcism – is now Rev Sun Myung Moon’s creature: he has declared Moon to be the Messiah, and Milingo’s breakaway church in Zambia was established with assistance from Moon’s Universal Peace Federation (an organisation which claims to support interfaith cooperation rather than religious schism).

The UPF has also been active in Kenya; a UPF website tells us that:

The Prime Minister of Kenya, the Hon. Raila Odinga, and his wife Ida Odinga, joined by an international delegation that included seven former heads of state and over 120 members of parliament, spiritual leaders and representatives of civil society, were warmly welcomed by a crowd of over 10,000 enthusiastic Kenyans to the Global Peace Festival (GPF) in Nairobi, Sunday, August 31 [2008]…Dr. Hyun Jin Moon, co-chair of the UPF and founder of the Global Peace Festival Initiative, delivered the GPF keynote address. Dr. Moon, who is the third son of the international spiritual leaders and peacemakers Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon, urged Kenyans to take pride in their nation and Africa’s role as the cradle of civilization.

Meanwhile, a Milingo minion in Zambia named Luciano Mbewe has been excommunicated by Roman Catholic Church.

(By the way, my spin-off blog on the Universal Peace Federation is still going, albeit intermittently)

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From the Sunday Times:

Global Witness, an environmental and human rights pressure group, faced legal action in London from Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, son of the president of Congo-Brazzaville. The NGO published a report, based on Hong Kong court papers, which suggested Sassou Nguesso had bought more than $100,000 of designer clothes and other luxury goods using a credit card paid for by public funds.

Sassou Nguesso hired Schillings, a London law firm, in an attempt to suppress the report. His application for an injunction did not succeed, but Global Witness has been left with legal costs of £50,000.

That’s one example I hadn’t seen before, but it’s fairly typical of the disgusting situation of libel law in the UK. Politicians are mumbling about reform, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

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Kyle at Right-Wing Watch has an excellent post:

Back in April and May I wrote a whole series of posts about how the Right was systematically trumping-up a controversy over the Department of Homeland Security Report, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” [PDF,]” which eventually led the DHS to pull the report.

Now, in light of the murder of Dr. George Tiller and the recent shooting at the Holocaust Museum, we’re seeing a variety of pieces claiming that these events validate the report’s warnings.  And undoubtedly they do, but the irony here is that this report was never about run-of-the-mill conservatives or right-wing political groups – it was focused on violent, racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-government extremists – but it was the conservatives and right-wing political groups who made it about them…The report was not a warning about mainstream conservative political groups or lawful anti-abortion activists or religious organizations – it was a report about violent, radical extremists.  But it was the Right that intentionally conflated the two and now, in the wake of two high-profile violent acts carried out by right-wing extremists, it is the Right that is insisting that they have nothing in common with such people….

Kyle also draws attention to the above ID Card, available from the Christian fundamentalist Liberty Counsel.

The recent spate of far-right violence also brings to mind Eric Boehlart’s warnings about Fox’s “Militia Media” back in April:

Is there any doubt that Fox News is playing an increasingly erratic and dangerous game by embracing the type of paranoid insurrection rhetoric that people like Pittsburgh cop killer Richard Poplawski are now acting on? By stoking dark fears about the ominous ruins that await an Obama America, by ratcheting up irresponsible back-to-the-wall scenarios, Fox News has waded into a territory that no other national news organization has ever dared to exploit.

The hate seems to be at fever-pitch: Max Blumenthal’s video of well-educated young American Jews in Jerusalem spouting extremely crude racism and opining that Obama should be shot is one particularly shocking piece of evidence.

And as my previous post notes, those who have heavily invested in crank conspiracy theories are now lashing out at everyone else to draw attention away from their own hatemongering. Chip Berlet has characterised very well what in fact is going on:

Apocalyptic aggression is fueled by right-wing pundits who demonize scapegoated groups and individuals in our society, implying that it is urgent to stop them from wrecking the nation. Some angry people in their audience already believe conspiracy theories in which the same scapegoats are portrayed as subversive, destructive, or evil. Add in aggressive apocalyptic ideas that suggest time is running out and quick action mandatory and you have a perfect storm of mobilized resentment threatening to rain bigotry and violence across the United States.

Of course, far-right conspiracism and hate are not the only corrosive forces working against civil society in the USA – Jeremiah Wright’s anti-Semitism was in evidence just yesterday, and Islamic extremism continues to inspire acts of violence and terror. 9/11 “Truther” nonsense crosses many political shades, stoking irrationality and fatalism wherever it finds a hearing, while the “Jewish lobby” remains an attractive explanation for those too lazy to consider in any detail the complexities of the USA’s relationship with Israel. However, after eight years of insisting that anyone who seriously criticised Bush was unpatriotic (or even anti-God), it seems that some conservatives have painted themselves into a corner: if it’s unpatriotic to criticise lawful authority, then the only thing to do is to borrow from the far-right the idea that institutional authority in the USA is tyrannical and unlawful. That can mean mainstreaming the most paranoid ideas from the far-right, without any regard either for truth or for consequences. Once again, I give you this, from WorldNetDaily:

It’s off the scale.

But some at least are appealing for a more sensible discourse – famously, GOP chair Michael Steele recently attacked Rush Limbaugh as “incendiary” and “ugly”, although he lacked the Kugelsack to stand by his words. Meanwhile, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs has broken with some of his “anti-Jihad” fellow travelers over “stories and causes that I think are completely nuts”, and now Shepherd Smith has gone on air at Fox to complain about the extremist emails he receives. Dan Wooding of the Christian ASSIST News Service similarly bemoans the many

…hateful e-mails that are forwarded to me attacking other Christians, the President, and a plethora of other things. Most are Urban Legends that have not been checked, but they still get sent.

Will we see some moderation now that people are getting killed? Or will we simply hear more complaints that joining the dots between paranoia and violence is simply about smearing innocent conservatives?

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Bronze award: David Klinghoffer of the Discovery Institute:

James von Brunn, Evolutionist

Now isn’t this fascinating. James von Brunn, the white-supremacist suspect in today’s Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting in which the guard who was shot has now tragically died, describes the relevance of evolution to his sick thinking.

…No, he doesn’t cite Darwin by name in the part of his book that’s readable online — the first 6 of 12 chapters. But do you get the general drift? And you want to tell me that ideas don’t have consequences?

Silver award: Debbie Schlussel, at her blog:

So What if Holocaust Museum Shooter is White Christian: We Know Who Crescented, er . . . Created This Atmosphere; 9/11 Truther

…Mr. Von Brunn has been on this planet for 89 years, and he didn’t feel comfortable shooting up a Holocaust museum until now–this new era of “tolerance,” in which we must tolerate the most extremist Muslim behaviors and sentiments.

Gold award: Rabbi Morton H. Pomerantz, at Newsmax:

Rabbi: Obama Breeds Climate of Hate Against Jews

Our new president did not tell a virulent anti-Semite to travel to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington to kill Jews, but he is most certainly creating a climate of hate against us.

…Just days ago Obama traveled to Cairo, Egypt. It was his second trip in a short time to visit Muslim countries. He sent a clear message by not visiting Israel.

But this was code.

(Hat tips: Failed Messiah, Sadly No!, Conwebwatch)

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A “special offer” from WorldNetDaily:

Clicking on the link takes one to www.wholecure.com/, where we learn that:

This coming pandemic isn’t a natural pathogen but rather a bio-engineered weaponized ‘flu’ designed for mass population reduction.  Mainstream doctors state the ‘fingerprint’ of this virus has never been seen, as it is a mix of Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Human and Spanish Flu.  They have concluded it must be man-made. The Globalists (people who run the world and have 90% of all wealth, influence and authority) have elected to create total chaos to undermine and finish breaking the world’s economy so they can complete implementing the “New World Order” a fascist regime of world domination, brutal controls and Martial Law…The politicians who did this answer to the Globalists and not to those who elected them to office. The average person knows little or nothing about who runs his life so has entrusted his future to a criminal cabal of politicians and bankers who systematically lie to him and rob him; then eventually kill him…The Globalists dug up frozen 1918 flu death cadavers in Siberia, extracted the DNA of the deadly Spanish flu and combined it with the very deadly Bird Flu (H5N1), mixed it with Swine Flu (H1N1) and merged it with a “carrier agent” of the highly contagious generic flu we all get to trigger certain and rapid human-to-human transmission. 

So what’s the “whole cure” that makes up WND‘s “special offer”?

MMS (Miracle Mineral Solution) is a germicidal agent capable of attacking and killing even early stage “flu” viruses. It operates without regard for the strain or variation that may evolve or be manufactured…If you would like to order by mail please send a check or money order for $24.95…

The site is run by Harold Williams, a Vietnam veteran who runs “SML”, or “Survive Martial Law”. It’s the usual story:

Months ago all the elements were in place for Martial Law in America. The secret FEMA army with Foreign troops were ready, (created with Trillions from an open ‘Black Operations’ checkbook) internment camps manned and all legal preparations made including the powerful Directive 51…I hear folks being optimistic about a ‘new’ president but really, nothing has changed at all. Just an articulate new puppet on the same strings. Our personal savings, retirements and worth is eroding to nothing. The Globalist’s are crashing our dollar to ZERO, setting the stage for world for WW3, the FEMA army is ready, the death camps are operational, massive numbers of foreign troops are here NOW and willing to do anything they are told, our borders are Militarized, people are disappearing and “the rule of law” is long gone!…The Globalist’s are creating three things… a One World Government, a One World Religion and a One World Currency.

WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has turned this general crackpot theory into a specifically anti-Obama conspiracy – apparently Farah is willing to seize on any material that can be spun into a tale that makes Obama into a uniquely tyrannical and dangerous person, no matter how risible or distasteful.

Williams’s last point of course links him in with specifically Christian fundamentalist apocalypticism, and he warns us that “Our world is about to become one of great tribulation of Biblical portions.”

Williams claims to know his stuff because he

spent years (some in Central America and Africa ) instigating Martial Law and then teaching troops how to enforce it… some Military, some private. My experience with Martial Law is extensive and I’m a student of the History of oppression…I was young and stupid back then. I will use the experience I have to direct you to ways that could ease the enormous stresses of martial law and ways that will clearly help save your life and the lives of your family.

Someone who read Williams’ ebook Survive Martial Law gives their views here. Apparently Williams is controversial among those who go in for this kind of thing because he warns that stockpiling guns is not a good idea. Instead, he recommends “a Ka-Bar combat style knife”. He also advocates combining resources in communities, rather than heading for the hills.

UPDATE: Just hours after writing the above, an elderly far right racist has murdered a black security guard at the Washington Holocaust Museum. The killer, James W. von Brunn, is a vicious anti-semitic conspiracy theorist. Coming in the wake of the George Tiller murder, it seems to me that recent political changes in the USA are sending extremists off the deep end. As Chip Berlet notes today:

Apocalyptic aggression is fueled by right-wing pundits who demonize scapegoated groups and individuals in our society, implying that it is urgent to stop them from wrecking the nation. Some angry people in their audience already believe conspiracy theories in which the same scapegoats are portrayed as subversive, destructive, or evil. Add in aggressive apocalyptic ideas that suggest time is running out and quick action mandatory and you have a perfect storm of mobilized resentment threatening to rain bigotry and violence across the United States.

And just as the likes of Farah responded to the Tiller murder with complaints that anti-abortion activists would be smeared by association, are we now going to hear the complaint that those who promote paranoia through crackpot rhetoric about unnamed “Globalists” are being smeared in the same way? There is no indication that Williams is anti-Jewish, and Farah of course is a fervent Christian Zionist – but the origins of this discourse are in anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, as was noted after the publication of Pat Robertson’s book The New World Order. The Christian Century argued in 1995:

WHAT CONCLUSIONS can we draw from this journey into Pat Robertson’s political-economic worldview? First, in The New World Order Robertson has produced a volume whose conceptual scaffolding is irredeemably ugly and damns the preacher’s intellectual integrity. If Pat Robertson is not in his heart of hearts anti-Semitic, he has mingled in the circles of those who are.

Second, Robertson is driven by apocalyptic visions of shadowy conspirators who are reaching for world domination through economic means. It is the “bankers,” some of whom “happen” to be Jewish, that bear the whiff of sulfur. To say that Robertson is more concerned with a worldwide conspiracy than he is with its agents is a fine distinction; however, it does not deliver him from charges of anti-Semitic fellow traveling.

That’s a conclusion that bears wider application than just to Roberton’s ramblings.

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Following on from yesterday’s post, the Christian Institute has posted a video hightlighting the case of a street evangelist in the UK who was warned by a policeman that expressing the view that homosexuality is sinful would be an offence under Public Order legislation; the policeman said that complaints of “homophobia” had been made, while the evangelist maintains he had not even spoken on the subject.

Various sites (here, here, and here) have picked the story up, some seeing it as another instance of “persecution”. It’s certainly troubling on free speech grounds, but to keep a sense of proportion the Christian Institute’s own documentation ought to be consulted:

Andy Robertson, a street preacher with the Open Air Mission (OAM), was suddenly told by his local council that he could no longer preach in Gainsborough marketplace. Local by-laws relating to market traders were cited at one point and the police were called in by the Council. Mr Robertson was also accused of making homophobic remarks, but this was unsubstantiated.

Solicitors wrote to the Council informing them of Mr Robertson’s legal right to continue preaching, and warned them that legal action would be taken unless they recognised this right. Further legal correspondence ensued. Following that correspondence, Mr Robertson has continued to preach without any further complaints or objections being raised.

So, a policeman on the ground who wasn’t particularly well-informed tried to use Public Order as the easiest way to defuse a complaint, when he should have considered the importance of protecting free expression. However, Robertson knew his rights, stood his ground, got legal back-up, and issue appears to have been resolved. And that’s it, although the Institute notes a few other instances as well (one involving tract distribution in a Muslim area).

The Open Air Mission was founded in 1853, and was created to make street preaching respectable (see James Winters, London’s Teeming Streets); among its  current targets is the theory of evolution, and it has a history of opposition to Roman Catholicism (Robertson’s conversion narrative includes a negative reference to the “Roman Catholic religion”). However, its style far more low-key than the American “confrontational Evangelism” I blogged on here.

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ASSIST News Service reports from the House of Commons:

A consultation entitled “The Persecution of Christians in the United Kingdom” was held in the Attlee room of the House of Commons on June 3, 2009. It was hosted by Dominic Grieve QC, Conservative Member of Parliament for Beaconsfield, along with Baroness Caroline Cox, a former speaker of the House of Lords.

Cox appears to have defined “persecution” rather broadly:

Speaking to the participants Baroness Cox said that Christian students in Britain had a spiritual vacuum. “They do not know the names of the gospels and the disciples of Jesus,” she regretted.

She said the Christian students feel uncomfortable when they are asked about the “crusades” by their Muslim peers.

Baroness Cox added that she was of the view the Christian students would not be ashamed while discussing crusades if they are apprised of “400 years of Islamic aggression.”

She called for an end to giving concessions to Muslims in Britain. Terming the Cross as “our heritage” Cox categorically condemned incidents involving forced removal of crosses and pictures of Christ.

Criticizing the establishment of Sharia courts in Britain she said: “They are operating in the country without any particular public debate or discussion on the issue.” She alleged that mosques where polygamous marriages have been performed are not even registered in Britain…She came down hard on the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowans Williams for acquiescing to the Muslims’ demand of setting up Sharia courts in Britain.

So, “persecution” includes the fact that Christian students are apparently too lazy to consult their own holy book, and that they’re not spoonfed a triumphalist take on the Crusades (part of a revisionist trend which I blogged here). And stories of enforced secularisation are also somehow the fault of Muslims. Even the Shariah issue is botched: rather than there being no “particular public debate or discussion on the issue”, there was a firestorm of controversy. But how is that “persecution” of Christians, however else such courts may be undesirable? (Shariah courts have gained some power by using a clause in the 1996 Arbitration Act, which allows for private  third-party arrangements in civil disputes; the Act was not created with Muslims or any other religious group specifically in mind)

Also present was Andrea Minichiello Williams of the Christian Legal Centre, whom I blogged on here; Caroline Petrie, a nurse who was famously suspended after offering to pray over a patient; Kwabena Peat, a teacher who was suspended after opining to the organisers of a training day on gay equality that homosexuals risked the “wrath” of God; and Ashar Mall and Nobel Samuel, a couple of evangelists to Muslims who have been subjected to threats and violence.

This does not seem to me to be a very impressive affair – a hotch-podge of grievances that mixes together criminal acts by extremist Muslims with instances of what appear to be overzealous applications of anti-discrimination laws, with some general and irrelevant tut-tutting about secularisation thrown in for good measure. Doubtless this is good for stirring up resentment, but to what end? It’s generally agreed that people should be free to follow their religious consciences (an ongoing concern in Britain for centuries), but also that people should not be subjected to religiously-inspired harrassment or discrimination (regarded as particularly desirable since the extensive socio-cultural changes of the 1960s). Getting the balance right is apparently proving difficult, but Cox seems less interested in making a serious contribution to how we can do it better than in using the problem to whip up anti-Muslim feeling (she has links to Geert Wilders).

This “consultation” has come in the wake of a call from the Archbishop of York for Christians to “wake up” and oppose instances of anti-Christian discrimination, and a call from Julian Brazier MP for a debate in Parliament. The Telegraph recently reported that:

The first poll of Britain’s churchgoers, carried out for The Sunday Telegraph, found that thousands of them believe they are being turned down for promotion because of their faith.

One in five said that they had faced opposition at work because of their beliefs…

Employers have been given new advice in a campaign, funded by the Government’s equality watchdog, that says people who evangelise in the workplace are “highly likely” to be accused of harassment.

The guidelines have been drawn up by the British Humanist Association (BHA), an atheist group, with the help of a £35,000 grant from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), a taxpayer-funded body.

The BHA responded to this article here.

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The BNP in the East Midlands has achieved 106,319 votes in the European elections and came fifth, so the Rev Robert West – who believes that the “mixing of races” is a sin against God due to divinely-ordained “physical, intellectual and character” differences – will not be going to Europe as an MEP. The defeat was not due to the Christian Party, which had preposterously declared itself to be the only party able to win against the BNP – they got a very un-macho 17,907 votes in the region, and appear to be cruising to irrelevance across the country.

Mainline churches made a clear stand against the BNP, with the result that the Church of England was targeted aggressively by the party – deputy leader Simon Darby mocked the Ugandan-born Archbishop of York as an “ambitious African”, and Anglican worshippers in Manchester were obliged to endure BNP activists who

gathered outside the cathedral on Sunday with loudhailers, playing tunes like ‘Rule Britannia’ and handing out leaflets that said: ‘Judas Archbishops Betray Ordinary People’…

West himself and some minions also showed up at St Faith’s Church in Gaywood, in a stunt to provide publicity for their view that

“The Holy Spirit must move within the congregation, I did not feel any of that in church.”

Meanwhile, one typically-vulgar BNP blog expressed its contempt for the national church with less pneumatological niceity, referring to

…the Church of England as a ‘vile perverts organisation’ and…to C of E Bishops as ‘pompous, self-righteous windbags … renowned for interfering with young boys’.

The actions of a couple of other churches have sadly been less impressive than the Church of England’s position: prior to the election, West was invited into the pulpit of a historic village chapel affiliated with the Fellowship of Independent Churches, but beyond a private assurance to a Messianic Jew that they were opposed to West’s views the FIEC declined to make any public statement.  The Apostolic Church, which ordained Rev West in the 1970s, could also have done more to undermine West’s credibility: the denomination did repudiate any link to West a couple of years ago in an email to a blogger which I fortunately reposted (the original blog has gone) and I was able to mention this when the BBC asked me for a soundbite, but again no public statement was forthcoming – even after West displayed his ordination certificate on the BBC Politics Show.

UPDATE: The BNP won two seats elsewhere in the country: these went to party leader Nick Griffin, and to a former lecturer named Andrew Brons. Griffin gave a typically bombastic victory speech, while Brons (who, as Vulgar Marxism notes, has a remarkable physical resemblance to Davros from Dr. Who) decided to bore his audience with a boastful yet tedious exposition of his educational background and electoral knowledge. Griffin also made a point of wearing a cross on his lapel:

Both men have disreputable far-right and racist pasts; Griffin’s is well-known, and more about Brons can seen here. Brons has a background in Colin Jordan’s anti-Jewish “National Socialist Movement”, and in 1984 he “was convicted of behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace following his arrest in Leeds while selling papers in a shopping centre.” Although doubtless someone might suggest that such old political antics ought not to be raked up, I hope most people will agree that they are significant and belong in the public domain.

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So, what’s happening with Jim Barfield, whom I blogged on here? Barfield, it may be recalled, is a former arson investigator who recently briefed Oklahoma state senators concerning his claim to have deciphered clues in the ancient “Copper Scroll” that would lead to the recovery of treasure lost from the First Temple in Jerusalem, including perhaps the Ark of the Covenant. He then headed off to the Judaean Desert, to the great excitement of apocalyptically-minded Christian Zionists.

His website now has some updates; alas:

We are at a standstill. Due to an illness the archeologist was unable to proceed with his plans. In addition, our flight return dates, other flight restrictions and damage done to my home by storms in Oklahoma have created a situation where a return to the US was unavoidable…

What a surprise. That was on 12 May, although poor website design meant I didn’t notice until today. But all is not lost – Barfield has identified a number of significant sites, and he has a Plan B for getting the authorities to investigate them:

We are in the process of putting together a DVD that will contain that disclosure in detail with additional graphics and photos from each location. Once the video is complete it will be sent to only select individuals in power in Israel…If you know people in power in Israel that might be of assistance, send me their NAME, GOVERNMENT POSITION, ADDRESS, PHONE, and EMAIL ADDRESS.

However, this is not without risks:

My greatest concern is what will the people in power do if adequate testing is done and a find is made? These items are not meant to bolster the national economy or to be added to the national treasury of Israel, it is a dowry meant for the time of G-d’s kingdom and for that purpose only. But then…that is where faith in G-d comes in for all of us who believe. Do we shrink from the possibilities or gather our five smooth stones.

In a second dispatch, we’re told that the unnamed Israeli archaeologist has

“laid claim” to the most important [site] of all. If we have actually located the buried cave, that site is now under his control and he has priority for digging at that location preventing others from digging without the involvement of the proper authorities. We can the return to the site and finish excavating to the proper depth to expose that cave opening. With that in mind, we can go to those in authority with the credibility that we have established and disclose our plan.

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With the Muslim community in Luton forcefully repudiating the handful of belligerent “anti-war” Islamist extremists who protested a military parade in March, local anti-Muslim blogger Paul Ray has been looking around for some other reason to keep the heat on  following the recent football hooligan rampage through the town. And none other than Robert Spencer has come to the rescue, by pointing out that the local mosque  – the  recently-firebombed Masjid al-ghurabaa’ – carries on its website a number of unpleasant documents, the most egregious of which is “The Prophesy Of The Utter Destruction Of The Yahood Will Only Occur At The Hands Of The True Worshippers Of Allaah” . It is a summary of a discourse by Shaykh Saleem Al-Hilaalee (var. Salim Al-Hilali, known as a Salafi reformist), and the pdf gives the impression of being actively endorsed by the mosque.

The author takes several verses from the Koran and constructs a grimly fascinating mirror-image of apocalyptic Christian Zionism, but with “the Jews” as the bad guys. Discussing Israel:

We recognise that this return to grandeur [of the Jews] shall be short lived, by the leave of Allaah (Subhanahu wa ta’ala). When Allaah (Subhanahu wa ta’ala) speaks about the destruction of Bani Israel after the second occurrence of corruption He uses the letter “faa” to imply that soon afterwards after their return to grandeur, their destruction shall come about. The faa indicates that it is a short, defined period of time wherein they shall gather in the Holy land and assemble uniformly so as to meet their demise together at the hands of the soldiers of Allaah from the ‘Ibaad ur-Rahmaan.

Thus the establishment of the modern state of Israel is read into the ancient sacred text – exactly the same hermeneutic that is used by Christian Zionists regarding the Bible. Also:

All the different initiatives that have been put forth to solve the Palestinian Muslim Arab-Jewish conflict have all failed miserably since this matter is with Allaah (Subhanahu wa ta’ala) and not by the directives of the UN or other councils.

John Hagee himself wouldn’t phrase that very differently – for apocalyptic Christian Zionists, there must be a future battle of Armageddon, and the idea that peace can be achieved by other means is simply a deception from Satan.

And just as Jews are idealised in Christian Zionism, so “the Jews” are here objectified in the opposite direction:

The Zionist expansion grew with the aid of Communist manpower (European Jews) and Capitalist monetary reserves. The Jews suddenly became a formidable force and attained grandeur never before achieved by their predecessors…

The Zionists strategy will not stop extending its malicious hand, gesturing peace, while simultaneously plotting extermination of those it is courting. This has always been the attitude of the Jews, past and present.

Also, we’re asked:

Is there greater deviance than setting the Masaajid wherein Allaah (Subhanahu wa ta’ala) is worshipped ablaze?

This is a reference to the 1969 arson attack on the Al-Asqa mosque in Jerusalem. But the perpretrator wasn’t Jewish, nor was he acting on instructions from Israel. In fact, he was a mentally-ill Australian tourist who subscribed to a heterodox form of Christian Zionism promoted by Herbert Armstrong.

Certainly there are plenty of reasons to criticise Israel, but this document is anti-Semitic, conspiratorial, crude, and eliminationist. Despite being himself Palestinian (born in Hebron, according to one source I consulted), the author is completely uninformed about the real complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and he appears to lack any ability to understand the human dimension. This kind of material undermines community relations, and nothing good can come of failing to challenge it.

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