“Freedom of Religion” and Other Lies
Christian and Muslim persecution in Israel ignored by the White House
By Philip Giraldi
April 25, 2023:
Information Clearing House --
"Unz"
-- The United States government, in its
incessant bullying of foreign nations to get them to see the world the way
that the cabal that runs Washington sees it, ironically often cites such
fictions as the “rule of law” that guarantees such “rights” as “free speech”
and “freedom of religion” to justify its illegal actions. Right at the
moment, the United States maintains garrisons illegally in both Iraq, where
the country’s parliament has asked it to depart, and also in neighboring
Syria where the government is fighting an insurgency that seeks regime
change and is supported by both the US and Israel. The US invasion of Iraq
in 2003 is analogous to what Russia has done in Ukraine though Moscow
certainly had stronger compelling national security reasons for doing what
it did while the United States had to construct a series of lies to provide
as an excuse to topple Saddam Hussein, an objective strongly supported by
Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who added his own fabrications to the
exchanges.
One has
to look to the media to discern the reasons why some developments are
wrapped in “religious freedom” or “democracy promotion” while other actions
are ignored or even covered-up. Currently the right-wing Jewish extremists
who have gained control of Israel’s government are engaging in something
like genocide directed against the Palestinian population, many of whom are
actually Israeli citizens though possessing second class rights when they
are enforced at all. Israel regards itself legally as a Jewish state, so
what is the “rule of law” for those who are not Jews and how does it
perceive “religious freedom?” Considerable government pressure is being
exerted to force the “terrorists,” as the Arab residents are frequently
called, to emigrate or face the consequences if they choose not to. It is
directed most particularly against those Palestinians who are leaders in
their community and it has therefore focused on the major Arab religious
groups, both the Christians and the Muslims.
Ironically, though one can read in the US media almost daily accounts of
alleged surging anti-semitism and the myth of perpetual Jewish victimhood,
the ongoing brutality against the Palestinians, including their religious
foundations and practices, is hardly noticed. That is the fundamental
problem as the silence or perhaps the willful connivance of the American
media and entertainment industry, firmly in the grip of the Jewish community
and its “standards,” has shaped the narrative and limited any propagation of
contrary opinion. It is a process that is similar to what has taken place
with any discussion of the Ukraine war in the mainstream media, where there
is also a heavy Jewish footprint.
There
have been two major incidents involving Jewish assertion of its occupation
of and control over all of Jerusalem that have recently impacted on the
country’s religious minorities during their holy seasons, Easter and
Ramadan. The
first consisted of two consecutive middle-of- the-night attacks by
Israeli police and soldiers in full riot gear armed with stun grenades and
clubs on Palestinians spending the night at the al-Aqsa mosque on Temple
Mount in Jerusalem, the third holiest site for Muslims. The Palestinian men
were there in part to protect the building from Jewish settlers who have
been threatening to destroy it. The Palestinians inside were beaten by
police, who had broken into the mosque, and as many as 350 mostly young men
were later arrested for resisting.
The
second incident was an
order by Israeli police limiting the regular Christian gathering on Holy
Saturday, referred to as the “Holy Fire” celebration, at the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre, which normally attracts 10,000 worshippers, to no more than
1,800 attendees. On the day of the ceremony,
Israeli police reacted with heavy-handed tactics to block hundreds of
Orthodox Christians from gathering at the church, which is at the center of
the old Christian quarter of the city. Several Coptic Orthodox priests were
particularly targeted in front of the church and beaten with batons. Israeli
forces closed off access to the site with roadblocks and barriers at the
gates of the Old City, permitting only small numbers of Christians and those
with government permits to enter.
Both
steps restricting freedom of religion were taken without any consultation
with the respective communities and without any evidence that there would be
disorder or violence without the police interventions. The Palestinian
Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the Israeli action as a “blatant
attack on the freedom of worship” and a “flagrant attack on the existing
political, historical and legal status quo in occupied Jerusalem
and on Israel’s obligations as an occupying regime in Jerusalem” that
“violate international law, international humanitarian law and signed
agreements.” The Christian churches’ leadership also separately objected to
no avail and responded to the threat by observing that Palestinian
Christians are themselves under increasing pressure from the Israeli
government to force them to emigrate. Christians constituted 20% of the
Israeli population in 1947 but now are fewer than 2%.
Indeed,
since the rise this year of Israel’s most far-right government in history,
Palestinian Christians frequently experience Jewish Israeli discrimination
at all levels. They directly observe how their 2,000-year-old community in
the Holy Land has come under increasing attack. In March, two Israeli men
assaulted and beat a priest in the church sited at the Tomb of the Virgin
Mary. In February, a statue of Jesus was vandalized by an American Jewish
tourist at the Church of the Condemnation, where Jesus was flogged and
sentenced to death while a month earlier, dozens of Christian graves were
desecrated by two Jewish teenagers at the Anglican cemetery on Mount Zion,
where Jesus’s Last Supper took place. In November, two soldiers from the
Israeli army’s Givati Brigade spit at the Armenian archbishop and other
pilgrims during a procession in the Old City. Christian clerics living in
Jerusalem claim that they are frequently physically assaulted and spat on by
settlers and other Jewish Israelis when they are walking in the streets. The
Israeli government has also been increasingly confiscating church properties
for various projects that benefit only the Jewish community. When Christians
seek redress from the Israeli courts they are almost always denied justice.
Now one
would think that the United States, with its dedication to “rule of law” and
religious freedom would at a minimum condemn the Israeli actions,
particularly the unprovoked violent attack on peaceful Muslims during their
high holy days at al-Aqsa. But no, and this is how a State Department
spokesman Vedant Patel
described it: “We are concerned by the scenes out of Jerusalem. And it
is our viewpoint that it is absolutely vital that the sanctity of holy sites
be preserved. We emphasize the importance of upholding the historic status
quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem and any unilateral action that
jeopardizes the status quo to us is unacceptable. We call for restraint,
coordination and calm during the holiday season.”
So the
State Department believes that Israel did not initiate the violence, which
is, of course, false. And Patel felt compelled to add an additional comment
on recent home-made rocket attacks coming from Lebanon in the wake of the
police and army actions: “We condemn the launch of rockets from Lebanon and
Gaza at Israel. Our commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad and we
recognize that Israel has the legitimate right to defend itself against all
forms of aggression.” Don’t you love the frequent assertion of the claim
that Israel has a “right to defend itself?” Patel was in fact wrong about
Gaza firing missiles – that was a fiction invented by the Israeli government
to explain why it had responded with a bombardment of its own directed
against the long-suffering Gazans. The hostile rockets, which did little
damage and injured no one, actually came from a Palestinian group in
Lebanon. Apparently, the Palestinians and Israel’s neighbors do not have the
right to defend themselves or to respond to Jewish violence. Rule of law and
religious freedom appear to depend on who is attempting to exercise those
rights and under what circumstances.
Interestingly, the New York Times had its own bizarre description
of what took place at al-Aqsa. Their correspondent wrote how the
crisis started when Palestinians “barricaded themselves” overnight
inside the building before being “cleared” by police from the mosque in the
middle of the night, to “protect Jewish worshippers” who were reportedly
observing the Passover holiday in the vicinity. In other words, the violence
was initiated by the Israelis but it was to prevent any threat against Jews,
even though there is no evidence that anything like that was intended and
why Jews were present at close quarters to a Muslim holy site is not clear.
By one report, extremist Jews may have been preparing to sacrifice a goat.
On
April 14th, to honor International Holocaust Remembrance Day,
President Joe Biden demonstrated the he is not as brain dead as is often
claimed. He knows exactly who owns him and knows how to pile it on.
His proclamation reads: “During Yom Hashoah and throughout these days of
remembrance, we mourn the 6 million Jews who were murdered during the horror
of the Holocaust—as well as the millions of Roma and Sinti, Slavs, disabled
persons, LGBTQI+ individuals, and political dissidents who were murdered at
the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. Together with courageous
survivors, descendants of victims and people around the world, we renew our
solemn vow: ‘never again.’”
Clearly
Joe had not gotten the message that in America every day is de facto
holocaust remembrance day as measured by the frequent appearance of that
expression in the media. But he makes sure of the trans gay vote by
including the LGBTQI+ folks as victims of the Nazis. Perhaps Joe should pay
some attention to the Americans murdered by the Israelis, to include the 34
crewmen of the USS Liberty killed by the Israeli military in 1967, activist
Rachel Corrie crushed by a bulldozer in 2003 and most recently Palestinian
American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh killed by the Israeli army last May.
Israel has not been held accountable for any of those deaths and it knows it
can get away with anything, including targeting and killing US citizens.
Next
week, the GOP will be doubling down on the message as Speaker of the House
Kevin McCarthy
leads a delegation of twenty bipartisan fawning congress critters to
Israel. He has carefully billed it as his first foreign trip as speaker,
underlining what an important ally Israel is. He will address the Knesset on
May 1st and there will no doubt be a lot of kissing and hugging
with Bibi and many pledges of undying commitment to the Jewish state. The
Israeli government is already describing it as “Speaker McCarthy’s speech in
the Knesset will be a sign for the strong and unbreakable bond between
Israel and the US.” And no doubt lots of money will appear in the pipeline
so Israel can defend itself. Just don’t mention Israel’s recent premeditated
murder of Shireen Abu Akleh back or “religious freedom.” And to hell with
the Palestinian Christians. They have been hanging around for 2,000 years
but are on their way out.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the
National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal
ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy
in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157,
Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is
inform@cnionline.org.