    The Yoke of Zion

    By Israel Shamir

    A small band of determined warriors takes on and fights off the
    mightiest army of the region: this is the stuff history is made of.
    Thermopylae, move over, Bint Jbeil is coming in! Bishop Philip of
    Antioch compared the levelling of this small Lebanese town with the
    destruction of Stalingrad, but these cities are also comparable by
    courage of their defenders. Seldom is a generation able to witness such
    a shining example of valour: for three long weeks a handful of Hezbollah
    warriors – two thousand by the most optimistic count – fought to
    standstill ten, twenty, thirty times more numerous Israeli troops. Forty
    years ago, Israelis defeated three armies in one week, but now the
    invader’s charm has worn off, or it has passed over to the vanquished.
    In today’s somewhat feminine victim-centred narrative, suffering
    attracts more attention than masculine gallantry. Thus Qana massacre has
    overshadowed a greater going-on, and that is the steadfast resistance of
    the Lebanese fighters. But Andromache’s sorrow should not obscure
    Hector’s courage: Hezbollah’s deeds deserve to be immortalised by poets.

    Why the war? Leave small details to a future Plutarch; this is another
    round of battle for Palestine. Supported and supplied by their captive
    empire, the US, the Jews had all the weapons, all the ammunition, all
    the diplomatic support, when hubris-drunk they drove into disarmed and
    starved Gaza to kill off its last resisters and impose the Yoke of Zion.
    Their invasion was prepared by a year-long siege and incessant shelling;
    they were cock-sure they could devour Gaza at will. And indeed, everyone
    kept mum: the Egyptians traded the glory of the Ramadan War for
    greenbacks, sons of Hejaz and Nejd were too busy serving oil at the
    pump, and the princes of the Gulf cared only for their falcons. The Jews
    felt secure as they stooped to finish off Gaza: who would disturb the
    lion of Judah roaring at his prey? And a tiny force from the Mount
    Lebanon said: we will. They attacked the all-powerful Jews; the hobbit
    pierced the sinew of Nazgul as he stooped to kill. The Israeli army
    roused from its prey turned north and lashed with all its might at the
    Hezbollah fighters. But they stood fast.

    This was most unexpected. The Israelis were used to killing – or
    dispersing - weaponless untrained Palestinians. Instead, the fighters of
    Sayyed Nasrallah dug their heels into the bare hills of Bint Jbeil and
    gave battle. If they were destroyed quickly, Israeli generals would lead
    their victorious troops to Damascus and Teheran before turning back and
    despoiling Palestine of its priceless jewel, Haram al Sharif. It still
    could happen, but the chances were diminished by the steadfastness of
    Hezbollah.

    More importantly, Hezbollah refused to cease fire as long as Israel
    occupies the land of Lebanon. This daring step undermined the whole
    strategy of Zionists. They planned to occupy the South and wait there
    until an international (or NATO) force entered to do their job for them.
    Hezbollah’s decision lacks one detail: any cease fire must extend to
    Palestine, as well. It is inconceivable that Lebanon will lay down its
    arms, while Gaza is besieged and Nablus is ravished.

    Israeli PM Ehud Olmert said: “We have changed the Middle East”. I do not
    know whether all the Middle East has changed, but in Israel we witness a
    great change. Until now, only a few just men and women of Israel called
    their government to desist in their aggression against Gaza and Lebanon.
    But the Katyusha rain changed minds of many. At first carried away by
    the arrogance of their generals, Israelis have now discovered the heavy
    price of war. Early complaints about the army’s failure to deliver have
    given place to critique of the policy itself. They have begun to
    understand that time is not on their side.

    The now-subservient regimes of neighbouring countries can fall any
    minute or remove the Yoke of Zion. Their rulers were led to believe in
    Jewish superiority, and that is why they chose to condemn ‘imprudent
    Hezbollah’. But now that their people see that even a small force of
    determined fighters can beat the enemy, they find no justification for
    the cowardly behaviour of their rulers. It can lead to revolution, for
    King Faruk was removed by young officers of Falujah fame disappointed by
    his weakness in 1948.

    Neil MacFarquhar reports in the NYT (28.7.06): “At the onset of the
    Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed
    Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United
    States and Israel took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.

    Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against
    the vaunted Israeli military for more than two weeks, the tide of public
    opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organization,
    transforming the Shiite group’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a
    folk hero and forcing a change in official statements. The Saudi royal
    family and King Abdullah II of Jordan, who were initially more worried
    about the rising power of Shiite Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor, are
    scrambling to distance themselves from Washington.”

    The report sees the popular opinion, “the Arab street” as the vehicle
    for change; but the change can come from above, too. The cruel
    bombardment of Beirut and of all Lebanon was supposed to frighten the
    Arab nations into obedience; instead, it convinced the rich and powerful
    Arabs that as long as the Jews run the writ in the Middle East, their
    own riches and power can be taken from them anytime by will of a Jewish
    general. Beirut was peaceful, Beirut agreed to expel Syrians, Beirut was
    the capital of the most pro-Western state, and yet it did not save the
    city from Jewish – not even vengeance for there was nothing to avenge –
    but arbitrary heavy-handedness. The Arabs in power ask, whether the
    Jewish state can be a peaceful neighbour at all, or whether (as the
    Iranian President Ahmadinejad says) it is bellicose by its nature and
    must be dealt with as the Crusader Kingdom once was.

    Indeed, the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem existed longer than the Jewish
    state, and probably would have lasted for centuries, but for its innate
    aggressiveness and its preparedness to serve as bridgehead for European
    invasions. The turning point in the Crusaders’ fortunes took place some
    850 years ago during the Second Crusade, which bore an uncanny
    resemblance to the Second Lebanese War. By that time, the Arab nations
    were inured to the invincibility of the Crusaders; sheer arrogance of
    power led the Crusaders to march on Damascus, their peaceful, complacent
    and hedonist neighbour, the least belligerent among small independent
    and much-divided Arab states, a “Lebanon of 12th century”. At first, the
    Crusaders ran into guerrilla resistance of the then-Hezbollah, and lost
    a lot of soldiers. When they besieged the city, the ruler of Damascus
    was forced to ask for help of his neighbour Nureddin, “the Ahmadinejad
    of his day”; an army of Nureddin drew close and the Franks had to
    retreat in haste.

    The Arab neighbours learned two things: (1) submission and complacency
    can’t guarantee their peace - for the Crusader state is a Damocles’ Sword
    forever hanging above their heads; and (2) Crusaders can be defeated.
    Out of the Second Crusade, came Saladin, a nephew of Nureddin, who
    united Syria and Egypt and eventually defeated the Crusaders at Qurn
    Hittin. Now the same two lessons have been delivered to the Arabs,
    courtesy of the IDF. Is a new Saladin on the way?

    II

    But the Jews may yet face another danger caused by their assertiveness.
    They relate to themselves the fiery prophesy of Rev. 19: 15 “Out of his
    mouth goes a sharp sword, with it he should smite the goyim, and he
    shall shepherd them with a rod of iron; and he is crushing with his feet
    the grapes of God’s wrath”. They take it so seriously that their
    massacre of Qana (120 butchered refugees) was named “the Grapes of
    Wrath”. These features are not the most endearing; and not only Arabs
    object to being shepherded by an iron rod.

    The US pays heavily for this Jewish fun. A poor American may hate to
    think about the fact that while he has no medical insurance, his
    government has to pay tribute to rich Israel. The average American
    filling his average car may dislike paying for support of the Jewish
    state since before the Neo-Cohns got into power in the Administration,
    gas was much, much cheaper. A wealthy and worldly American may feel
    vexed that he is not welcome wherever he goes – from Paris to Istanbul -
    as he was before the Yoke of Zion.

    An easy-going American may dislike the fact that he can’t cuss a Jewish
    cop without reading about it in the New York Times. A believing American
    may be upset that he can’t mention Christ unless he is ready to be
    summoned to a court hearing. An honest American – or European – may be
    annoyed by their hypocrisy. It is not enough that they push for war,
    they also blame others for it. It is not enough that they kill children
    in droves, they also preach about immense value of human life.

    A religious Bible-thumping American may remember the prophecy of
    Ezekiel, 22 who said to the leaders of Israel in the name of the Lord:
    “You have become guilty in your blood that you have shed; everyone among
    you, putting out his full force to shed blood” – that is the blood of
    innocent Palestinians and Lebanese; Ezekiel also prophesied the Zionist
    Gathering of Jews, and that it will lead to a major disaster to
    Zionists: “the house of Israel has become dross to me; therefore I will
    gather you into the midst of Jerusalem, and blow upon you in the fire of
    my wrath, and you shall be melted in its midst, and you shall know that
    I, the Lord, have poured out my fury upon you. The Israelis have used
    oppression, and committed robbery, and have wronged the poor and needy;
    indeed, they have oppressed the gentiles wrongfully, and therefore I
    have consumed them with the fire of my wrath; their own way have I
    rewarded upon their heads, said the Lord God.”

    An American politician, maybe even an American president may get tired
    by the Jewish Lobby’s endless need to demand sympathy or to protest an
    outrage; by necessity to watch out, by ideological censorship and party
    discipline, by their blackmailing habits, by their fat pockets and grip
    on media, by the Damocles Sword they hanged above his head.

    Moreover, an American or a European who today calls himself “a Jew” may
    wonder whether he has much in common with the people whose poets call
    upon their soldiers to: “Storm on Lebanon and Gaza, and plow it and sow
    it with salt, raze it down, let no human being remain alive/ Turn them
    into a desert, rubble, a valley of mess, unpopulated/ Save your nation
    and drop bombs / On villages and cities, their collapsing houses do
    shell / Kill them, shed their blood, turn their lives into living hell
    /”.

    He may give a thought as to whether he wishes to be a secret weapon of
    Israel in words of Prime Minister Olmert who said: “Arab weapons, even
    when they hurt us, are nothing like the powerful, secret weapon we
    possess: The Jewish people… across the world, and the special feeling of
    love and mutual commitment that prevails between all Jews, regardless of
    where they are”. Instead, he might just stop considering himself a Jew
    and melt into the general populace, as millions have done before him.

    A Jewish friend of mine wrote: “I have asked a number of my friends in
    the US whether they think the Zionist mantra retains its power, and they
    agree it does not. The lobby does not, I think, have a bright future -
    that is why its agents have faced prosecution. Even if their lock on
    Congress persists for some time, their hold on American opinion must now
    diminish. I believe Lenny Brenner when he argues that young Jews are
    deserting Judaism and Zionism in droves.”

    Israelis, i.e. dwellers of Palestine who consider themselves Jewish, may
    also contemplate whether they want to fight and support the ideological
    Yoke of Zion which brings them only hatred outside and poverty within.
    Instead of living in economic prosperity and in harmony with our
    neighbours, the Yoke of Zion turns us into impoverished cannon fodder.

    And after all, Americans and Europeans may just get bored with the guys
    that endlessly preach to others and are never willing to hearken to
    others’ views. Even Germans may one day kick their masochist habit of
    endless repentance. The Yoke of Zion will be gone, for this Yoke is
    nothing but shared belief in Jewish superiority. And the perfectly
    harmless Jews will have to learn and be ordinary citizens of their
    countries, without special access to presidents, bank coffers and TV
    screens.