Trump doing God's work in Middle East

Of course he is!

Long-time Trump-watchers are unanimous that Donny J has finally found his real calling - as God's point man on earth. What, you thought that was the Pope?

The idea of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel crosses the minds of presidential candidates with some frequency. They tend to think aloud on the matter whilst on the campaign trail. It's a handy sop to some of the bigger donors, and a big vote-getter in the right-wing "Christian Zionist" constituency.

Once they're in office they tend to stop thinking about it, aloud or otherwise. After all, why piss off some of the biggest customers of America's military-industrial ecosystem? Russian or Chinese weapon systems would suit the Saudis just as well in a pinch.

So what's different this time round? For one thing, the imbecile in the White House is desperate for some headlines that aren't about one or another of the investigations around him. The imbecile in Riyadh, now firmly in Jared Kushner's pocket, is in way over his head and is keen to throw in his lot with what he sees as the big dogs, even if it means turning his back on the Palestinians.

The third cheerleader for this march to Armageddon is the greatest leader since Moses, Mr Netanyahu. He's having his own troubles with investigations and surely welcomes this diversion.

Trump, MbS, Netanyahu... we're not talking about the three wise men here.


What could go wrong?

Harper's Putin-bashing on the election trail was an epic fail

The so-called Ukraine crisis has pretty much been run off the front page by the ISIS crisis, but I'm sure you recall Putin's "annexation" of Crimea and his "invasion" of the Donbass region. The reason you remember is because Big Steve put a lot of electoral eggs in his anti-Putin basket, and our media never tired of retelling the same tired tale; we have to stand up to Putin's quest for world domination. Yup, Bad Vlad was trying to rebuild the Soviet Empire for sure...

Serious people understood all along that Harper's jingoistic rhetoric was aimed squarely at the Ukrainian Canadian vote in the upcoming election. Apparently the Conservative Party brain trust was convinced that third and fourth generation Ukrainian Canadians would reflexively vote Harper if the anti-Putin slanders were loud enough.

Alas, it was not to be. Not that the rhetoric wasn't loud enough, or that Harper's grand-standing (remember Australia?) wasn't silly enough; it was simply too silly. In the end, the Conservative showing in Ukrainian Canadian ridings shrivelled mightily.

The other so-called ethnic vote Harper was excessively pandering to was the "Jewish vote." That was probably something that went beyond mere electioneering considerations. If you look at the agenda of the Alliance Missionary Church types who were heavily over-represented among Harper's inner circle, it's not hard to see the "Christian Zionist" sub-text that permeates their ideology.

Nevertheless, there can be no question that the Harper gang was aiming for a sweep of the most populous Jewish ridings with their incessant pro-Likud rhetoric. How did that work out? Not so great. Three out of four went Liberal.

Why? Those "Christian Zionists" made the mistake of assuming that every Jewish Canadian automatically supports everything the government of Israel does. When the government of Israel is in the hands of a racist settler clique, there are many many Jewish Canadians who have grave reservations about giving unqualified and unquestioning support to the state of Israel.

Harper's politics of division went far beyond Ukrainian and Jewish Canadians of course. It was native against non-native, old-stock against immigrant, old immigrants against new immigrant... wherever the Harperites found a fissure to bang a wedge in, they went for it.

On the other hand, Trudeau built a campaign around inclusivity and tolerance, and Canadians bought in big-time.

Maybe there's hope for this country yet.

How Ariel Sharon became "The Bulldozer"

I was just watching a Paul Begley video in which the American bible-thumper was opining that Sharon got that nick-name because of his dogged determination to pursue his agenda once he embarked on a political career.

Actually, he was "The Bulldozer" well before his political career began. Sharon was known as "The Bulldozer" because of his penchant for ordering IDF Caterpillars to demolish the homes of Palestinians, often with the inhabitants still in the house.

Funny how those "Christian Zionists" can miss those little nuances of Israel's history.

Ariel Sharon, Rabbi Kaduri, and the imminent arrival of the Messiah

There's an awful lot of internet traffic today devoted to imaginary prophecies concerning visions allegedly visited on Mizrahi rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri.

Kaduri was quite a character. Spent his whole life reading scripture and seeing visions. He kicked the bucket just weeks after Sharon went into what was to be his terminal coma. But he's having a bit of a resurrection today, thanks mostly to Christian Zionist propagandists in the US.

I'm personally a bit of a skeptic when it comes to visions. Oh, I've certainly had my share... that's why I'm profoundly skeptical. But Kaduri was mostly a big deal among the more orientalist folks in the Holy Land, and God knows those are the folks who will go in for visions and prophesies and quackery of all stripes.

It's a bit of Netanyahu-inspired folk-lore that Rabbi Kaduri once confided to him that Jehovah himself had revealed in a vision that anyone to the left of Likud was no longer an authentic Jew.

Netanyahu himself is of course the ultimate pragmatist and he knows quackery when he hears it, but he's certainly not adverse to harnessing it for his own ends.

Pretty much the only people anywhere even more susceptible to quackery are American Christian Zionists like Paul Begley.

What is really astonishing, and this is a profound indictment of the American education system, is that millions of people lap this stuff up.

Israel at the brink

It's not the Israel we've been relentlessly cheerleading these last fifty years. It's not an Israel her founding fathers would recognize.

Yesterday there were two attacks on IDF posts by so-called Hilltop Youth gangs. Who are these "Hilltop Youths?" The new generation of militant settlers that have been coddled and courted by the state for far too long.

There are at least 600,000  Israelis who hold German passports. Well over a million who hold American passports. To say nothing of the hundreds of thousands who can fly "home" to England or Canada or France or Brazil. For several generations affluent secular Israelis have kept that other passport in the bottom drawer as an insurance policy of last resort. If the Arab tide ever rose too high, there was a fall back position.

I think a lot of those secular Israelis are rumaging through the bottom drawer these days. Not because of the Arabs. Because of that radical settler fringe that is no longer on the fringe.

Even Netanyahu, who has done more than any leader to nurture the sense of entitlement that is now on full display in the settler population, seems to be taken aback. Tragically, the so-called Christian Zionists and the American Right won't even notice, and the money and the missles will keep right on flowing.

After all, this is predicted in the Book of Revelations.