The Israeli Knesset is debating a bill proposed by David Rotem of the extreme right Yisrael Beiteinu party that would require all Israeli citizens to swear loyalty to Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state.” This bill is targeted at increasing pressure on the twenty percent of Israelis who are Palestinian citizens while forcing the ultra Orthodox Jewish minority who reject the legitimacy of any state not based on Jewish biblical law to accept Zionism. If passed in its proposed form, citizens unwilling to take the loyalty oath would be at risk of losing citizenship I wrote an article about a year ago, I think, titled “Bibi is NOT Israel!” but the title was in Hebrew.
The Modern State of Israel uses Judaism the way George Bush uses Christianity, a prop, only that and nothing more, quoth the Raving, nevermore.. and yeah, I deliberately mangled the line from Poe.
Zionism is at most a sect of Judaism, so in fact are any Christian sects. In fact, when Judah split off from Israel while Solomon lay dying, it was done on a sectarian level equal to England and the Vatican. Bibi courts some reactionary extremists who are pushing him as a Jewish Pope, who would imagine?
Other than the Zionist faction is more secular than sectarian… And the absence of a “Unified Judaism” doesn’t seem to have wiped out Judah in the past 3500 years, so why the new Anti-Semitic actions from people claiming to represent Israel, the people, in the form of Israel the state?
Bibi can no more claim to represent Judaism than the Pope could. Either the people or the faith.
When I looked up the Hebrew spelling of the last post, that Bibi is not Israel, I also tried and gave up after a few moments (I had a headache, the soup was boiling over, the dog ate my homework, whatever) but I stumbled across some sectarian Messianic as in “Jewish to Christian Convert” website claiming that Netanyahu is a Messianic name. Which could be and probably is exploited in Israeli politics when dealing with people who are sectarian.
This is like the term “under God” being placed into the Pledge of Allegiance to try to overcome LEGITIMATE sectarian concerns, by Christian Groups and JEWISH groups, over the Idolatrous worship of the State embodied in the rest of the pledge. These groups are, now, commonly dismissed as being “Not REAL Christians” by the same groups, like the TeaBags and RepubliKlan Party as being “Not REAL Americans”. Arbitrarily because we don’t share the Fascist Agenda so common in such groups. Or Plutocratic.
The way of saluting the flag during the Pledge was changed at the same time, due to political expediency, from the Roman Right-hand-extended forward salute, known as the Bellamy Salute, to the Roman hand-over-heart salute, equally a salute to the power of the state, worshiped as a god. The other two are a (now) Military Salute and one used when invoking the name of any god while taking an oath, all four of these salutes were Standard Roman ways of greeting…. ones social equals or superiors, the flags and other standards of Rome and pictures and statuary of the Roman Emperor.
Two of the images were from Far Right Extremist sites who insist that, in one case, the stripes on the American flag represent their TeaBag Fake Revolution Anti-American Extremist Views that anybody who doesn’t take THEIR version of the Pledge of Allegiance-Loyalty (to their idolatrous Money Cult, capitalism) is … wait for it…
Not a REAL American. The hand over heart one in fact. That’s now a standard salute for one not in uniform, but the original, was for soldiers who had their unit insignia, like a police badge today, over their left breast. Complete with a picture of the Emperor. The ones who said they were gods.
To close it out, for now, any DoucheBag Tea Party Extremists who want to object, tough cookies, bubba. (or bubbette) You ignorant racist fascist bastards will NEVER have the authority to declare anybody a “REAL” American or to take that distinction away from anybody.
The same way your Extremist Hero Benjamin Netanyahu will never have the authority to declare anybody a non-Jew. And that picture of uniformed American children giving the fascist stiff arm to the flag, while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, absolutely not faked.
The illegal government raid on the Eldorado religious compound has gone by unprotested by all for a week now. While we have no love for any Right Wing Christian cultists, let alone these split off fundamentalist Mormons, we have a hard time understanding why the liberals and Left of this country are so nonchalant about this particular governmental violation of fundamental US citizen civil liberties? You cannot expect for others to respect your own rights if you stay silent in cases like this.