U.S. Fear of the Jewish Lobby vs. the Fear of GOD

"There at Riblah the King of Babylon slaughtered the sons of (King) Zedekiah before his eyes and also killed the nobles (the administration) of Judah. Then he put out (King) Zedekiah's eyes and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon." Jeremiah 39:6,7

The Slaughter of a King's Son's - Connection to Today

What connection does the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in 587 B.C.'s ruthless treatment of Judah's King Zedekiah and the slaughter of his sons, have with today's powerful Jewish lobby? Could there possibly be any relevant relationship between what occurred to a Jewish King over 2500 years ago with a paranoid American Administration today being so fearful of the continuously overbearing Jewish Lobby? Could it be that GOD has vital lessons for U.S. leaders to learn from a Jewish King having his own eyes gouged out soon after those eyes had been forced to watch each of his beloved sons being murdered by the orders of the ruthless King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.

A Mortal Fear of Aggressive Jews

The fearless, faithful Prophet Jeremiah had personally attempted to persuade the Hebrew King Zedekiah to obey GOD by recognizing Sixth Century B.C. geo-political realities and immediately surrender Judah and Jerusalem to the military onslaught of the vastly superior forces of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar which GOD was using to punish the Hebrew Kingdom of Judah for its own outrageous disobedience to GOD.

Though the Prophet Jeremiah was firm and clear with the King about the horrible consequences he personally faced if he continued to ignore his advice to immediately surrender to the far superior Babylonian forces, the foolish and frightened King summarized to GOD's Prophet his ridiculous reason that he would ignore the Prophets warning and reassurances. So he insisted on disobeying this messenger from the Almighty even though he was now being confronted with the personal extreme negative consequences to him, his administration and his family. His resistance to the Prophet's firm warning was all related to his own paranoia that he might receive harsh treatment from that day's equivalent to today's Jewish Lobby.

So the pathetic King Bush, I mean King Zedekiah lived in a mortal fear of being mistreated by certain Jews. So his overwhelming dread of that days Jewish lobby totally rendered irrelevant any reverence for God that the weak and fearful King had possessed. So the Prophet's stern warning from God of the horrible consequences he would soon experience as the awful price he would pay for fearing the Jews rather than obeying God were totally ignored by the paranoia paralyzed King.

So these pathetic words are recorded in Jeremiah 38:19:

"King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, 'I am afraid of the Jews who have gone over to the Babylonians for the Babylonians may hand me over to them and they will mistreat me,'"

Despite the Prophet's strong reassurances to the King that his worries would not be fulfilled, the weak King's unjustified fears carried the day. So Jeremiah's reassurances and warnings were ignored by the King like a swimming duck ignores the rain. So four horrible consequences were the tragic result of his stubborn and even stupid commitment by the King to fear the Jews rather than to obey GOD.

Tragic Results of the King's Fear of the Jewish Lobby

1. The King's nobles were each murdered.
2. The king was forced to watch as each of his own beloved sons were "slaughtered" before his eyes.
3. After watching his own sons being ruthlessly murdered, his own eyes were gouged out.
4. The totally blind King was bound with shackles and marched the many, many miles to Babylon while enduring severe pain and total humiliation. He knew that he would spend the remainder of his life in a Babylonian prison.

It must be considered significant that each of these four horrible consequences would have been totally avoided if the King had wisely chosen to obey the Prophet's clear warning and to have believed his reassurances about the future safety of his family. But instead he chose to give in to his paranoia regarding the ever present threats of the Jewish Lobby. So in retrospect, for him to have feared God rather than the Jews made infinitely more sence than his having chosen to have his major decisions all based on his irrational fear of the rage and criticism of the virtually always complaining Jews.

"They will not hand you over," Jeremiah replied. 'Obey the LORD by doing what I tell you. Then it will go well with you and your life will be spared. But if you refuse to surrender, this is what the LORD has revealed to me…'"

But today, despite this vivid historical account of these horrendous four consequences which were the direct result of Judah's King Zedekiah's paranoid fear of the Jews; all his nobles (his virtual cabinet) being murdered; being forced to watch all his sons being "slaughtered" before his own eyes; experiencing the excruciating agony of having his own eyes gouged out; enduring the painful and humiliating long march to Babylon where he would live out the remainder of his life in a lonely prison with his main companions being his gruesome memories and his self recrimination.

But despite the fact that this horrible but instructive account is contained on the pages of the very Bible owned by each and every U.S. official, the officials are far more paranoid of the opinion of the Israeli Lobby and AIPAC than these officials are of the evaluation of GOD. But if they have good sence they should now consider the terrible consequences of this one Jewish King succumbing to his irrational fear of the Jewish Lobby rather than obeying GOD's commands to govern with Justice. But what do we observe in America today? What do we see as being possibly the major reference point for virtually every American leader today? It is:

"How will the Jewish lobby and the Jewish voters and the Sarah Palin represented Christian right respond to this or that U.S. policy or decision?"

Yes, the horrible cost of one government leader living under the toxic influence of his paralyzing fear of that days' Jewish lobby was extremely high. This extraordinarily high cost for King Zedekiah is well documented in the unchanged Scriptures of the Prophet Jeremiah, chapters 38 and 39.

Nevertheless, despite the tragedy vividly demonstrated in this very real historical example, what do we observe openly occurring in America's political arena today? We consistently see present U.S. leaders and potential future leaders making their major decisions under the critical eye of the Jewish/Israeli lobby, being much more concerned about what that lobby will think rather than being concerned about what a Living Just GOD will know to be just or not just. So these leaders will continue to pay a high price for this often tipping point influence of powerful Jews as they are now paying in Iraq and may soon pay in Iran. Most certainly, the often unrecognized consequences of being so disproportionately influenced by the strong bias of the Jewish lobby can be exceptionally destructive, just as this King experienced when he paid such a devastating cost for his unreasonable fear.

A Revelation From Jeremiah's Well

From talking with both Middle Eastern Muslims and Middle Eastern Christians I have noted that a majority of both groups have a virtual resentment of the strong bias that they think that the Old Testament Scriptures have in favoring the Jews and not favoring the people of other races. What they do not seem to realize is that a majority of the Old Testament is exceptionally critical of both the attitudes and actions of the Jewish people.

So we will now further examine valuable lessons that should be learned from the Jewish lobby of King Zedekiah's time. For this evil lobby attempted to slowly murder the Prophet Jeremiah by holding him captive in the deserted well of one of King Zedekiah's officials. In that deep well they fully expected him to slowly die of a lethal combination of suffocation from the heavy mud and starvation because he was cut off from food. But of course GOD intended to rescue his faithful, innocent Prophet.

However, there was one perplexing problem that GOD had to solve before he could rescue his faithful Jeremiah. How GOD solved this problem is one of many potent examples of how in the Old Testament Scriptures, GOD often turned away from Jewish men and women and instead turned to non Jewish people in His revelations of His mercy. (In fact, when the Messiah pointed out this biblical reality to Jewish people in his home synagogue in Nazareth, his neighbors there became so enraged with his comments that they tried to murder him for powerfully demonstrating to them by two powerful examples, of how racist they were in contrast to GOD not being racist.

Due to the pervasive fear throughout the entire large city of Jerusalem of the very real danger of becoming victimized by the powerful Jewish lobby, GOD could not find one Jew in the whole city who would risk the lobby's wrath by helping GOD's Prophet to be rescued from the deep, muddy well. So GOD had to find a courageous foreigner because there were no courageous Jews who were willing to take that kind of risk in order to rescue this obviously innocent servant of GOD.

But GOD did locate a foreign "Cushite" from either Sudan or Ethiopia who was eagerly willing to risk his own life in order to save the innocent life of GOD's righteous messenger. Yet, what a horrible commentary it was on the degeneration of that day's Jewish community that not one Jew could be found in all of Jerusalem who would face the wrath of the Jewish lobby in order to rescue GOD's obedient Prophet.

This lack of even one courageous Jew exposed the vivid reality of how deeply the Jews, who were soon to be taken captive by the often wicked Babylonian Empire, had sunk into the filthy mire of their own disobedience to GOD. In a figurative sence, it was as though all of the cowardly citizens of Jerusalem who should have rescued GOD's servant but who feared the Jewish lobby more than they feared GOD, were the ones who were truly buried in filthy mud instead of it being the Prophet Jeremiah who was buried in the mud. Yet, it appeared to them (shubbiha lahum) that it was he that would die by being trapped in the deep mud at the bottom of a deserted well.

Thus today, it may be the American leaders who make decisions while always looking over their shoulder for the approval of the Jewish lobby who may appear to be winners. In contrast, it may be those who are constructively critical of Israeli policies who may appear to be the ones who are mired in the mud of supposed unfair criticism of Israeli policies and Israeli treatment of the disposed and often despised Palestinians. But Justice is GOD's reference point. Therefore His reference point is not the man created opinion of the overbearing and always Risen Messiah rejecting and often justice rejecting Israeli lobby.

Lesson to be Learned

The obvious moral of this unpleasant historical scenario is this. On the basis of what happened to Judah's King Zedekiah's nobles, to his sons, to his eyes and to his future, when he chose to fear his day's Jewish lobby instead of fearing GOD, the wise choice for America's officials should be easy.

It is definitely not wise for the current U.S. leaders to continue to fear the Jewish/Israeli lobby more than they fear GOD. For it's very certain that GOD has not changed and it appears to be certain that the tactics of this day's Jewish lobby of influencing and manipulating through fear, has not changed. So America's leaders must decide whether it is in the long range interest of the U.S. to base foreign policy on the fear of the Israeli lobby or to fear GOD. Perhaps if they had an opportunity to ask King Zedekiah what his choice would now be on the basis of his deplorable experience, they would have their answer.

Epilogue - The Other Side of the Coin

What I have just presented from the miserable ending of the life of King Zedekiah contains a valuable lesson that is totally valid. So for U.S. leaders to ignore this lesson today will be extremely destructive for both the U.S. and for Israel. But my brief presentation does not begin to deal with the complexities and power that U.S. Christian Zionism holds over the minds and hearts of even American atheists and agnostics. For they too are in bondage to a powerful pro-Israel bias and simultaneously are also in bondage to a lethal anti-Arab bias that contains much ugly racism.

It is also obvious from my writing that I am not a scholar such as those men and women who contribute to the Foreign Affairs journal. But Walter Russel Mead is a scholar and his essay in the July/August Foreign Affairs about "Why Gentile Americans back the Jewish State" more than convinces me that when you consider the thoroughness of the brainwashing Americans have received to force them to be in favor of the Jews and against Arabs and especially against Palestinian Muslim Arabs, the Palestinians have virtually a zero chance of being treated justly by present U.S. political leaders.

For instance, Professor Mead references this quotation from an article in the popular Time magazine written following the Jewish victory in the 1948 war after the U.N. had awarded Israel so much of the land which was then legally occupied by the Palestinian people. These are a people who GOD recognizes as actual valuable human beings despite what some leaders and scholars think.

"The Western world tends to think of the Arab as a falcon-eyed warrior on a white horse. That Arab is still around but he is far less numerous than the disease ridden wretches who lie on the hot streets, too weak, sick and purposeless to role over into the shade."

After that racist quotation Professor Mead then proceeds to elaborate that: "Americans saw (and many leaders still see) a contest between a backward and incapable people and a people able to settle the wilderness and make it bloom, miraculously fulfilling ancient prophecies of a Jewish state." (Parenthesis mine.)

Significantly, Professor Mead highlights a number of opinion makers who are strongly Christian Zionists or are non Christian Zionists but who have left their indelible mark on the psyche of a vast majority of Americans. In addition, he also reveals how biblical Hebrew was mandatory for much of early U.S. history at the influential universities of Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton and Yale.

He mentions how Clark Clifford, the White House Chief Council under Truman was so pro Israeli (Significantly, George Marshall, the architect of the Marshall plan was totally against recognizing Israel as was Robert Lovett, Marshall's under secretary who both strenuously opposed Clifford.)

John Adams stated: "I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation."

In 1814 the influential Albany Presbyterian pastor John McDonald predicted that Americans would assist the Jews in restoring their ancient state. Elder Orson Hyde of the powerful Mormon church declared in 1841 his view that "The return of the Jews to the Holy Land was under way. The great wheel is unquestionably in motion and the word of the Almighty has declared that it shall roll."

As early as 1816 the Niles Weekly Register, the leading American news and opinion periodical of that time which was not religious, predicted and welcomed "the impending return of the Jews to an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital". The magazine projected that the restoration of the Jews would "further the enlightenment and progress - and this, clearly, would be good for the U.S. as well as for the Jews."

Mead states that the association between Dwight Moody, the country's leading evangelist and Cyrus Scofield, the important Bible scholar, "put the future of Israel firmly at the center of the imagination of conservative American Protestantism."

"For U.S. anti-semites, the establishment of a Jewish state would reduce Jewish immigration to the U.S." and so anti semetics also supported the Jewish state.

The Methodist leader William Blacktone in 1891presented a petition to President Benjamin Harrison calling on the United States to "use its good offices to convene a congress of European powers so that they could induce the Ottoman Empire to turn Palestine over to the Jews." The 400 signatures were overwhelmingly non-Jewish and included the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; the Speaker of the House of Representatives; the chairs of the House Ways and Means Committee, and the House Foreign Affairs Committee; the future President, William McKinley; the Mayors of Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Washington; the editors or proprietors of the leading East Coast and Chicago Newspapers; an impressive array of Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic clergy. Business leaders who signed the petition included Cyrus McCormick, John Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan. At a time when the American Jewish Community was neither large nor powerful and no such thing as an Israel lobby existed, the pillars of the American gentile establishment went on record supporting a U.S. diplomatic effort to create a Jewish state in the lands of the Bible.

According to Mead, by 1948 "many Christians in the U.S. felt a heavy burden of historical debt and obligation toward the Jews but not the Muslims. If anything, they believed that the Islamic world was indebted to American Christian missionaries for many of its leading universities and hospitals and that American Christian support before and after World War II had helped promote the emergence of independent Arab and Muslim states that was taking place."

According to Mead, other influential leaders who were known for being pro-Israel if not actual Zionists, were; Theodore Roosevelt (the hero of John McCain) along with his cousins Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt who were Christian Zionists. In fact, Teddy Roosevelt wrote in 1918, "It seems to me entirely proper to start a Zionist state around Jerusalem." In addition to the three Roosevelts, the theologians Paul Tillich, Reinbold Niebuhr and Martin Luther King, Jr. were leading public voices calling on the U.S. to support Israel.

Even during World War II, the Black activists W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neolte Hurston, Langston Hughes and Philip Randolph supported the precursor of the Israeli Likud Party in its effort to create a Jewish army. The Civil Rights leader, Adam Cloyton Powell, Jr. went even further raising $150,000 at a New York City rally for the militant Zionist group, the Irgun Zvai Leumi, which he called "an underground terrorist organization in Palestine".

In May of 1947, Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko announced before the United Nations that "the Soviet Union supported the creation of a Jewish State." But even before that shocking announcement by a communist leader, at Yalta, Joseph Stalin told Franklin Roosevelt that he too was a Zionist.

I find it deeply disturbing when I read Mead's analysis of the parallels that the U.S. intellectuals receive comfort from as they compare the U.S. destiny with that of their perceived destiny of Israel. For instance, for the U.S. to receive comfort from their cruel dispossession of American Indians of their land with how the ancient Israelites "similarly conquered the land of the Canaanites," I find appalling.

Two of Mead's most disturbing perceptions were: "Americans found the idea that they were GOD's new Israel so attractive partly because it helped justify their displacement of the Native Americans." and "Widespread gentile support for Israel is one of the most potent political forces in U.S. foreign policy."

Mead explains, "as the ancient Hebrews did, many Americans today believe that they bear a revelation that is ultimately not just for them but for the whole world; they have often considered themselves GOD's new Israel. One of the many consequences of this presumed kinship is that many Americans think that it is both right and proper for one chosen people to support another."

The thing that I observe that is shockingly missing from all of the parallels and obfuscations by both Israel and the U.S., is GOD's perspective of JUSTICE. I may be wrong but I don't believe that there is even one mention of Justice in the entire article of why gentile Americans back the Jewish State.

If the following quote is actually a true statement by Iran's foreign minister, Manouchier Mottaki, as quoted in the Oct. 13, Newsweek, it is a beautiful statement and is very much pleasing to GOD. "They like to interpret everything through a lens of might and power. What we like to do is to look at issues through the perspective of justice."

No matter what an interpretation of the Scriptures may be by both Israel and the U.S. for Israel having their own nation in the Mid East, if that vision ignores justice for Palestinian human beings, that nation is being built on a corrupt foundation that is a stench to GOD. Therefore, until both U.S. and Israeli leaders recognize this true reality, both nations will pay a terrible price. For GOD is not mocked. Whatever a nation sows, that nation will reap.

May every nation hear and heed the Prophet Amos who was a shepherd, and like the shepherd David, intimately knew GOD. He cried out to GOD from the depth of his being. Amos' cry was, "But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream."

Because both Israel and the U.S. give virtually no priority to justice rolling on like a mighty river, but instead are quite comfortable with the triumph of injustice, the future for the Palestinians will continue to be very bleak. But that will change when either the U.S. or Israel rediscovers a fear of the Almighty.

But, due to the U.S. having such a long and deep favoritism toward Israel and a more recent ugly racism toward especially Palestinian Arab Muslims, the road to Justice for Palestinians will be unusually steep, difficult and rocky. Yet, perhaps GOD will raise up the right American leader who will pursue Justice like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pursued Justice.

The Jacksonian Americans

According to the interpretation of Professor Mead, a large percentage of Americans have what he refers to as a Jacksonian mentality which term he does not choose to explain. But it is a mentality that favors massive retaliation against minor infractions. So this mentality does not benefit the Palestinians because it is a deep rooted belief among American that Israel has the right and even the duty to retaliate massively to even a slight provocation by the Palestinians. Consequently, according to Mead, "Some of the same actions that have hurt Israel's image in most of the world have increased its support among Jacksonians."

This deeply ingrained evil mentality dictates that Palestinians not receive sympathy from Americans when Israel uses disproportional retaliation against Palestinians. Rather, they cheer. But this type of injustice does not reflect GOD's perspective. So may we all perservere in our prayers and our efforts to serve GOD in His purpose of triumphing over U.S. and Israeli injustice against Palestinians.