Protecting Israel is Their Full-Time Job
Time to question the loyalty of some legislators and judges
This bill gives South Carolina the tools to protect Jewish students’ and all South Carolina students’ right to a learning environment free of unlawful discrimination. We are hoping this momentous step will result in another national wave to, once and for all, begin defeating rising anti-Semitism.
…a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot.
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The sycophantic devotion to the State of Israel on the part of our politicians defies all logic. It has never been in America’s interests to become involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East, nor has it ever been in our national interests to favor the Jewish state at the expense of its neighbors. On the contrary, Israel’s neighbors are larger, more populous, and more resource-rich than it is, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that their goodwill toward us is more valuable than Israel’s.
Since America’s devotion to Israel is manifestly not in our national interest, it must be motivated by other concerns. At the national level, it is not difficult to discern that politicians fear the power of the Israel lobby and its allies in the media. At the state level, however, the motivation is less clear. In the case of South Carolina, I have to suspect that legislative support for the ridiculous attempt to criminalize criticism of Israel is motivated largely by a century-old superstition.
South Carolina is home to many devout Christians. In the nineteenth century most Christians had no particular liking for Jews, if they did not actually disdain them. Secular Americans tended to be accepting of Jews, but they did not consider them “chosen,” sacred, or worthy of any esteem that others did not also merit. American Christians distrusted them.
Then came along Cyrus I. Scofield, a notorious con artist and ex-convict turned Bible salesman. His 1913 Scofield Reference Bible, with its philosemitic notes on the text, has undoubtedly done more to turn American Christians into Zionists than any other single writing or event.
Few Christians realize that Scofield never in his life attended a Bible college and very few know that his Bible was underwritten by wealthy persons who were not Christians themselves and did not want to be. They were Jews interested in promoting Zionism among gentiles and who realized that ignorant American Christians could be manipulated into doing just that. In the con man Scofield they found their gentile spokesman.
Undoubtedly few, if any, of South Carolina’s Christian legislators are aware of these facts. That alone is probably sufficient to account for their support of the recent “hate crime” law they have enacted, irrespective of any bullying by AIPAC.