By MICHAEL SLOVANOS
POPULAR propaganda circulated in western nations and Israel would have us believe that the only extremists in the world are the immigrants who march in London streets, brazenly displaying their jihadist ideology, or the mullahs in Iran and Pakistan who marry young girls.
As objectionable and deportation-worthy these Islamists are, they have counterparts in Israel, who would have us believe that they are called in their own “holy war” to expand Israel’s borders into Gaza, Lebanon and Syria to supposedly match lands promised in the Old Testament to the patriarch Abraham.
The Zionist extremists around the Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (above) base their alleged claim to a “greater Israel” on a verse in chapter 15 of the Old Testament Book of Genesis: “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I givec this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”
Any credible Christian theologian would reject this claim, based on the New Testament teachings of the apostle Paul, who clearly taught in Galatians 3 and other passages that Abraham’s true descendants are Jews and Gentiles who follow Christ, who himself in John’s gospel chapter 8 rejected the claim of a group of religious Jews to being Abraham’s children.
“If you were Abraham’s descendants you would do the works of Abraham,” Jesus told them. He went on to condemn them as “children of your father the devil”. Jesus knew that they were plotting to kill him.
There is even a major sect within Orthodox Judaism named Neturei Karta that rejects Zionism altogether and most certainly the Greater Israel Project, although they are dismissed by groups such as the American Jewish Committee as an inconsequential minority group.
Smotrich and Gvir are widely condemned by the western liberal establishment as Israel’s “far right” who keep Benjamin Netanyahu in power, hence their ill-deserved ministerial roles in the Knesset.
Benjaimin Netanyahu has long been the subject of criminal investigations resulting in charges of corruption, but frequent wars further enable him to hold the reigns of power under emergency legislation.
Last year the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway announced travel bans and asset freezes on the two “hardline Israeli ministers” for repeatedly “inciting violence against Palestinians”.
Ben Gvir and Smotrich both lead Zionist/nationalist political parties that help keep Netanyahu’s governing coalition in power. Both men have faced criticism for their inflammatory comments about the occupied West Bank as well as their positions on the war in Gaza.
The pair simply reflect the worst of the Jewish settlers who come from places like Brooklyn, New York, claiming a divine right to steal Palestinian homes and land and espousing Jewish supremacist teachings pulled out of the Talmud. There is a long list of violent incidents committed by settlers against West Bank Palestinians.
“We are steadfastly committed to the two-state solution which is the only way to guarantee security and dignity for Israelis and Palestinians and ensure long term stability in the region, but it is imperiled by extremist settler violence and settlement expansion,” a joint statement by the countries’ foreign ministers said.
“Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights. Extremist rhetoric advocating the forced displacement of Palestinians and the creation of new Israeli settlements is appalling and dangerous,” the statement added.
“We have engaged the Israeli Government on this issue extensively, yet violent perpetrators continue to act with encouragement and impunity.”
Of course the anti-Israeli sentiment was rapidly reversed on December 14th last year when two gunmen opened fire on Jews at an open-air Hanukkah celebration in Bondi, Sydney, killing 15 people.
State and federal politicians, in a sefl-induced guiltfest after the shooting, rapidly drew up new laws to make so-called anti-semitism a crime. “Antisemitism is the demonstration of hostility, prejudice or discrimination against Jewish people or Judaism as a religious, ethnic or racial group,” the Australian Federal Police declare on their website.
So do we now assume that criticism of the beligerent, warmongering, Jewish supremacists Ben Givr and Smotrich are protected from criticism because it represents “hostility” against Jewish people? What reasonable person would not harbour hostility towards that despicable duo?
Do these clowns really believe Trump and his AIPAC-approved Republicans will rally behind their Greater Israel delusions by grabbing large chunks of territory from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria – in addition to Saudi Arabia and Egypt? If Trump should be insane enough do that, it will be his political funeral.
