http://www.israelshamir.net/english/Stumble.htm
THE STUMBLING BLOCK
How the Passion of the Christ may help
bring Peace to the Middle East
By Israel Shamir
In the Return of the King, the Oscar-studded film based on the
Tolkien's fantasy, there is a touching and inspiring moment: at the
lowest ebb of struggle, when the Sauron hordes pour in through the
breached gates of Gondor, horns announce the arrival of the relieving
force. Rohan is coming, and the looting Orks retreat from the City in
disarray.
Such a rescue force came to the embattled people of the Middle East in
the unexpected form of a film. This inspired creation of Mel Gibson
broke the dangerous and immoral alliance between devout American
Christians and their Jewish shepherds. Mel Gibson and his The Passion
of Christ may well have advanced the cause of justice and peace in
Palestine more than we could possibly dream of. Incidentally, he
succeeded in undermining the most dangerous heresy in the long history
of Christianity: the right-wing Evangelicals' infatuation with Jews
and Zionism. Now it is the time to recognise this victory and enjoy
its fruits.
The Jewish establishment and its willing subjects carried out a
perilous policy of encouraging the Clash of Civilisations, embodied in
ideological and US military warfare against the Third World. For this
reason, they promoted the concept of a 'Judaeo-Christian' Civilisation
at war with the Muslims, with the 'Red-Brown' Russians, with the
French and with traditional societies and forces. Mel Gibson and his
powerful film opened the Second Front of this great struggle within
the powerbase of the enemy -- in the US -- by exposing the lie at the
very foundation of the Judaeo-Christian myth.
As St Paul prophesied, Christ turned out to be the “stumbling
block" for the Jewish advance. The Jewish leaders thought they secured
the US, and that they could safely proceed with this war elsewhere.
Their second target was Islam, the Middle East – their
battleground, and the trophy was to be the holiest shrine of Islam in
Jerusalem: the Dome of the Rock, with the blazing golden letters
inscribed by the Umayyad Caliphs that proclaim "Blessed is Jesus
Christ, Blessed is the Day of His Nativity, and Blessed is the Day of
His Resurrection."
Zionists formed an alliance with the misled Christian Conservatives,
and the US troops took over Iraq and Afghanistan, while supporting the
Israeli offensive against the native Palestinians in the Holy Land.
Then came Mel Gibson, and their alliance fell apart. Thus, Christ
indeed was our secret weapon against the Zionist takeover. I felt it
for long time; ever since on Easter 2001 I referred to His Passion in
context of Palestinian suffering, just to be immediately frozen out by
mainstream Jewish pro-peace groups. Let us raise the banner of Christ,
for it causes split amongst our adversaries.
Professor Patrick McNally wrote that the Judeo-Nazis repeated the
error of German Nazis; they became over-extended by opening the Second
Front. They could not help: they attacked Gibson and the American
Christians, though their support was necessary for the Middle East
takeover.
Sidney Blumenthal, an American Zionist Jew and a former senior adviser
to President Clinton, wrote in the Guardian: 'The neocons and the
theocons (conservative Christians) were bound together for different
reasons: the neocons by foreign policy (read: support of Israel), the
theocons by their continuing fundamentalist revolt against modernity
(for modernity read: neo-liberalism). Enter Mel Gibson, sprinkling
holy gasoline on the fires and blowing up the cultural contradictions
of American conservatism.'[i] It frightened Jews, concludes
Blumenthal, and therefore Bush must go.
In Israel, this understanding came first. Gershom Gorenberg wrote in
the Jerusalem Report[ii]:
“Post-9/11, the "conflict of civilizations" is often taken for
granted; it supposedly pits the "Judeo-Christian" world against
Muslims. That mood, along with the Intifada, has fertilized an
alliance twinning Israeli right-wingers and some U.S. Jewish leaders
with conservative Christians. The Passion should sober people up.
“By attacking The Passion, Jewish groups such as the
Anti-Defamation League helped to publicize it. I don't think they had
a better option. To ignore a film in which Pilate is a softy and the
Jews cry for Jesus' blood would be equivalent to pleading "no contest"
to the West's oldest calumny. But the Passion affair underlines the
absurdity of the romance between Jewish groups (including the ADL) and
the Christian Right.
Gershom Gorenberg is right. This alliance of Christ-loving American
Conservatives and Christ-hating Jewish leadership was absurd from the
beginning. The Christians in the US, as elsewhere, belong to the
traditional all-embracing faith of love to the poor and downtrodden.
The Jewish establishment subscribes to the faith which is good for the
rich and powerful Chosen People, whether Jews or godless Mammon
worshippers. Their alliance was a peculiar quirk of history that
brought mankind to the edge of the abyss.
As a last, bizarre stroke of this alliance, on March 5th, 2004, the
Arab-bashing Pat Robertson appealed on his blasphemously-named
'Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN)' to the American Christians to
join with Jews this year to celebrate the Festival of Purim. Those who
answer his call will celebrate together with hundreds of followers and
admirers of a fundamentalist American Jew, Baruch Goldstein, who
slaughtered dozens of worshippers in the city of Abraham, Hebron on
Purim in 1994. His burial place in Kiriyat Arba is the location for
Purim celebrations for many Israeli Jews, reported a Jerusalem weekly
Kol HaIr on March 5, 2004. It is probably the least-likely festival
for a Christian to celebrate together with Jews. By his call,
Robertson plainly presented his anti-Christian credentials. His enmity
is not reserved for the Muslims only: Robertson also attacked Russia
and accused this Christian nation of plotting the "gassing of Jews and
Jewish children" – which is a horrible blood libel against a
country that has a Jewish Prime Minister. But his support for Zionist
atrocities in Palestine would suffice for the viewers of Gibson's film
to reject Robertson and his preaching of hate.
God knows, there are other Christian forces, and the enthusiastic
welcome received by Gibson's film proves that they are the real
majority. The Reverend Charles Carlson of www.whtt.org runs Project
Straight Gate, which speaks against the war in Iraq and Palestine. On
a recent pro-life demonstration they called upon their
fellow-Americans to care about lives of Iraqi and Palestinian children
as much as for the unborn children of America. Their signs read
"Innocent Blood on Our Hands, Iraq - Gaza", and "Choose Peace, not
War". They called upon "fellow Christ-followers to oppose successive
slaughter in the Middle East. Americans are now among the victims of
the war almost every day. But even when none of 'ours' are killed,
they are being fashioned into assassins and brutal occupiers, which is
not what most Christ-followers should desire for their children."[iii]
II
Gibson's film expresses forebodings of the Second Coming. It brings
greater awakening into Christian hearts in the Lent; it restores the
almost-forgotten tradition of Passion Plays; it separates the lambs
from the goats. Not only have Abe Foxman of ADL and Mervin Hier of
Wiesenthal Centre exposed their hostility to Christ, but
crypto-Zionist Michael Lerner of Tikkun sent his disciples to give
away anti-Christian leaflets at the movie theatres. Lerner began as a
peace-seeker, but soon turned out to be a Zionist Trojan horse in the
peace camp.
On the other side, Mark Bruzonsky of MER, a longtime friend of
Palestine, condemned the Jewish establishment's attempt "to
relentlessly crucify Gibson for trying to tell the story as he knows
it, or rather as he believes it, [as] in itself a kind of intellectual
and political blasphemy. Rather Gibson should be thanked for standing
his ground, making his movie, telling his story, and making us all
ponder and think and feel... whether Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist,
atheist... or just plain human." Our friend Gilad Atzmon published a
strong essay supporting Gibson, while brave Jeff Blankfort of
California wrote that it confirms the reality of Jewish control over
Hollywood.
Indeed, this film unveiled the anti-Christian intentions of American
Jewry. The New York Times reported that 'the chairmen of major studios
said they would avoid working with Mr. Gibson because of The Passion
of the Christ. One of them explained: "It doesn't matter what I say.
It'll matter what I do. I will do something. I won't hire him. I won't
support anything he's part of." [iv]
Because they run Hollywood it is not strange that America produces
anti-Christian films seeping with hatred for the poor, downtrodden,
un-Chosen people, be it American rednecks or Arabs, Russians or Latin
Americans. The US newspapers, too, gave vast coverage to the hostile
positions of Jews on the subject of The Passion, showing an incredible
bias well known to us friends of Palestine.
Their fear and loathing shows that this film can change America; and
therefore it can change the world. American Christians can recognise
the urgent need to free their media from the deadly grip of Christ's
enemies. They can attune their policies towards Christ, share their
worldly goods with the needy, return their sons from overseas wars,
turn their mighty arms industry into ploughshare makers to feed the
hungry; reject Mammon; promote spirituality and be a good neighbour to
all nations of the Earth.
Let them remember: The Passion of Christ is not a millennia-old event:
even today, as I write, it is the funds and weapons sent by the US are
helping the Jews to crucify Palestine. They besiege the Nativity town
of Bethlehem and plot to destroy the Dome of the Rock with its
benedictions of Christ. The horrors of The Passion presented by Mel
Gibson are inflicted daily on the captive Palestinians. They are
killed by the hundreds, tortured by the thousands and starved by the
millions. People who support or ignore this persecution will never be
able to wash their hands of their blood.
The nearest few months will show whether the American Conservative
Christians care for Christ; whether they are an independent political
power at all, or just an alibi-providing Gentile front for the Jewish
policies; whether the only political swing possible in the US is that
between pro-Likud Bush and pro-Labour Kerry. It is the time for
Americans to regain their lost independence. But for that, they will
need a miracle.
[i] Guardian, March 4, 2004
[ii] FUNDAMENTALISM ON FILM Jerusalem Report (Israel) March 8, 2004
Issue
[iii] http://www.whtt.org/whtt.shtml?articles/RighLifeSponshtmFnl.htm
[iv] New Film May Harm Gibson's Career, By SHARON WAXMAN. New York
Times - 26 Feb 2004.
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