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>From http://www.antiwar.com/justin/pf/p-j041502.html
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Behind the Headlines
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
April 15, 2002
BEWARE THE RED HEIFER
How religious nutballs could start World War III
While the American secretary of state shuttles back and forth between Yasser Arafat
and Ariel Sharon, trying desperately to cobble together a) a ceasefire, and b) some
basis for a settlement of the world’s most tiresome perpetual crisis, it behooves us to
examine the issue of … the red heifer.
Say what?
You heard me, I said the red heifer….
IMPOSSIBLE – YET IT HAPPENED!
When I was a lad, my favorite feature of the Sunday comics was something called
“Impossible! – Yet It Happened!” Stories of haunted ghost ships, three-headed
babies, and frogs mysteriously raining down from the heavens, odd occurrences
chronicled in the classic style of Charles Fort and breathlessly described in lurid
prose under the tantalizing headline: Impossible? Yet It Happened! It seemed to me
to be a trope for the irrationality of the world I was beginning to enter, a sign that
the
society of adults wasn’t all it was cracked up to be: after if, if it’s impossible,
then it
couldn’t have happened – right?
Wrong! To confirm this fact, we need only look at the most significant recent
development in the Middle East, and, no, I don’t mean the intifada, or Colin Powell’s
visit, or the suicide bombings, or any of that other stuff: I’m talking about the
recent
birth of a red heifer on a farm in Israel. Why is this so important? The answer is to
be
found in a fascinating piece by Rod Dreher in National Review Online, “Red Heifer
Days,” which recounts the theological significance of this event – and it’s ominous
implications for the future of the region:
“Could this little calf born last month in Israel bring about Armageddon? The concept
would have struck many people as absurd the last time such a calf was born, in
1997, and probably makes most readers laugh today. Big mistake: Never
underestimate the power of religious faith to shape events, especially in the Holy
Land. Especially right now.”
THE ESCHATOLOGICAL FACTOR
It all has to do with eschatology, a religious conception of the Final Days of mankind,
a scenario mapped out by three of the world’s major religions in very similar (and
specific) detail. The focus is on the Temple Mount – the site of Ariel Sharon’s
provocative visit that set off the current intifada, and also site of the First Temple
of
the Hebrews. Destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar,, and then again by the Romans,
according to Jewish traditionalists the Third Temple will be built by the Messiah, who
will be not only king of Israel but also high priest of the rebuilt Temple. To the
Muslim
Palestinians, and their co-religionists worldwide, this is the site of the Dome of the
Rock, a Muslim shrine, the sacred al-Aqsa mosque, and the place where
Mohammed mounted a fine Arabian horse and galloped straight up to heaven. A
large number of Christian fundamentalists have also imbued this spot with
millennialist import: according to this “dispensationalist” view, Jesus Christ will
return
to earth to do battle on the plain of Armageddon and triumph over the Antichrist only
after the building of the Third Temple. Dreher cites Gershom Gorenberg, whose
book, End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount,
describes the apocalyptic intersection of religion and politics both in Israel and the
US:
“What happens at that one spot, more than anywhere else, quickens expectations of
the End in three religions. And at that spot, the danger of provoking catastrophe is
greatest.”
I hate to tell you this, but the danger just got much greater. Now, as for that red
heifer….
OUR NUTBALLS, AND THEIRS
The key thing to remember, in all this mythological murk, is that no religious Jew is
allowed to set foot on the Temple Mount, for fear of desecrating the sacred ground.
In any case, the Temple can only be reconstructed when the Messiah returns to save
his people, and, so far, no Messiah, and no Third Temple. But not all Israelis are
willing to assume such a passive stance, tradition or no tradition. Ever since Israel
came into possession of old Jerusalem, in 1967, a fanatical group of Israeli
nationalists have tried to kick-start the eschatological machinery, plotting the
destruction of the Muslim shrines and busily constructing the various ritual objects
for
use in the rebuilt Temple. These Israeli nutballs have forged a natural alliance with
our Christian nutballs, who have their own theological rationale for hurrying
Apocalypse along. They are dispensationalists, who believe – among other things –
that the colonization of the Holy Land by the children of Israel signals the second
coming of Christ: the efforts of these “Christian Zionists” account for the uncritical
support for Israel among many “born again” Christian conservatives.
PROVOKING ARMAGEDDON
Okay, so now we get to the part about the red heifer: it turns out that, although no
religious Jew is allowed on the Temple Mount, there’s a loophole – it’s okay if he or
she is first purified in the ashes of a pure red heifer. These creatures are
exceedingly
rare. One was born a couple of years ago, in Israel, but it soon began sprouting white
hairs on its tail and was deemed insufficiently pure by the rabbinical authorities. Ah,
but science found a way around the fickleness of God’s creation, and through the
modern miracle of genetic engineering – and funding provided by “Christian Zionists”
in America – a red heifer has been bred, and pronounced pure. As Dreher points out,
the world media covered this as a joke, but in reality the red heifer is the
theological
and political equivalent of a suitcase nuke waiting to go off. Dreher cites Richard
Landes, a professor of history at Boston University and director of the Center for
Millennial Studies:
“These kinds of circumstances are exactly what people are waiting for. We could be
starting a war. If this is a real red heifer, and strict Orthodox rabbis have declared
her
worthy of sacrifice, then a lot of Jews in Israel will take that as a sign that a new
phase of history is about to begin. The Muslims are ready for jihad anyway, so if you
have Jews up there doing sacrifices, talk about a red flag in front of a charging
bull.”
Rod Dreher, by the way, is the only writer I know of to catch the significance of this
red heifer business, because the media tends to not take religion seriously, and yet I
can’t help thinking that he perhaps unintentionally underscores another overlooked
reality: that the problem of fundamentalism is not limited to the Arab world. The
Islamic brand brought down the World Trade Center, but the Judeo-Christian
varieties may succeed in starting World War III.
We have heard much about the evils of “moral equivalence” in the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict. The former, we are told, are superstitious terrorists, whose fanatical
mindset
makes the perfect receptacle for the hatching of murderous plots, while the Israelis
are Westernized democrats, ensconced, just like us in, in a secularized consumer
culture. But Dreher points to the existence and growing influence of Jewish
fundamentalists, fanatics on the order of Al Qaeda, who could well spark an all-out
Arab- Israeli war. Citing Professor Landes, he writes:
“’It’s entirely conceivable that this [red heifer] could trigger a new round of
attempts to
blow up the Dome of the Rock.’ This is something the Israeli security forces have
long been vigilant against. But with their attentions drawn elsewhere by the war with
the Palestinians, it’s possible that a radical group could slip the net. And it’s
possible
that religious extremists elements within the Israeli army could help them.”
EVEN IF…
As Colin Powell shuttles back and forth between Sharon and Arafat, I can’t help but
think of that red heifer, growing fat and glossy under the ministrations of its deluded
creators. Even if the US somehow succeeded in forging a “peace plan,” even if
President Bush actually had the guts to stand up to Sharon and say: “Enough – or
else!” Even if, somehow, the nutball tendencies among the Palestinians could be
minimized or at least contained – even then, it seems, the cause of peace in the Holy
Land is utterly doomed. For what happens at the end of three years, when the red
heifer grows old enough to sacrifice, and its ashes can be used for purposes of ritual
purification? At that point, the locus of religious conflict in the world could well
see yet
another Israeli invasion, this time prompted by an upsurge of religious fanaticism
married to a virulent ultra-nationalism – precisely the forces that want to propel the
Satanic Benjamin Netanyahu and his nutball followers into power.
HISTORY AND IRONY
Sharon knows full well that if he accedes to the demands of the Americans,
Netanyahu, the ultra- hardliner, is bound to succeed him. The irony of US
intervention, in brokering a “peace plan,” is the unintended consequence of a
burgeoning religious supremacism in Israeli politics, one with the power to undo all
the good work of American diplomacy.
A DANGEROUS HERESY
What, then, is the solution? The widespread idea that it is the task of American
diplomacy to come up with a solution to all or even some of the world’s most
intractable problems is precisely where US foreign policy has gone wrong since the
days of the Founders. It is a dangerous heresy promulgated by cold warriors trained
in the European tradition of realpolitik that the earth is our chessboard, and we must
always be making or planning a move: this troublesome activism has been the cause
of much misery in the world, and much social and economic dislocation in this
country. It is responsible for the policy of perpetual war pursued in modern times by
our rulers in Washington, and eventually it will be our undoing. For what can Colin
Powell do against the red heifer? Against this improbable creature, the whole
architecture of US policy in the Middle East could be laid low, and that is a humbling
thought – or at least it ought to be.
INGRATITUDE, THY NAME IS ‘ISRAEL’
You’ll recall that the big reason for US involvement has been to clear the decks for
an all-out attack on Iraq. Hey, but wait a minute – with all this talk of Saddam’s
alleged “weapons of mass destruction,” the image one gets is of the Iraqi ruler
raining missiles down on, say, Brooklyn. But he hasn’t got anything even close to that
kind of range: now that the Iraqis and the Saudis have kissed and made up, his only
possible target is Israel. We are begging Sharon toplease lay off the Palestinians so
we can do Israel the favor of taking out a deadly threat to its continued existence.
And still, Sharon says no.
GO, COLIN, GO!
Since US tax dollars have funded the colonization and humiliation of a people, the
Palestinians, the American secretary of state has a moral responsibility to see that
they get a break, and a fair deal. Powell seems admirably committed to that, and he
is more than living up to the role implicitly ascribed to him in this space as the
conscience of the Bush administration. As such, he faces a powerful and vocal
interventionist claque, reflexively pro-Sharon (actually, pro-Netanyahu), and highly
influential in the Republican party. It’s one man against the War Party, a truly heroic
struggle on Powell’s part, and, so far, he’s proving himself to be at least the equal
of
his adversaries. More power to him – as long as he sees that the only rational long-
term strategy for the US in the Middle East is an exit strategy.
A FUTURE SCENARIO, CIRCA 3002
Our Israel-centric foreign policy, which has alienated the entire Arab world, Muslim
and Christian alike, must go. The urgency of this reorientation is underscored by the
Israeli government’s intransigence. We need to extricate ourselves from this volatile
region, which seems cursed by some special blight, and a likely target of divine
anger or some kind of retribution that can’t be long in coming. For all the good
intentions, the diplomatic phrases, the talk of “peace” and “justice,” are as nothing
when they come up against the awful power of the red heifer.
In this context, imagine the following scenario. It is the year 3002, and some kid is
reading the Sunday funnies – yes, they still have Sunday comics, because some
traditions are indeed sacred – and he comes across a little item that starts like this:
“How could a red heifer have started World War III? Impossible? Yet it happened….
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