But don't, when alliances are based on "interests", you lose interest in distinguishing good from evil? 
Posted on 12/14/2005 4:16:59 PM PST by SJackson
The debate in the Jewish world over whether an alliance with conservative Christians is desirable or wise reveals a complete disregard for the nature of political alliances in any political system throughout history. The debate is conducted at a childish level that would cause embarrassment in any other context. As such, there is an air of unreality about it that belies the reputation of the Jewish people for being clever.
Political alliances are not and have never been about whether allies love each other; rather, the nature of such associations is expressed in the well known maxim of Lord Palmerston, a 19th century British prime minister: Britain does not have permanent friends or permanent enemies, Britain has permanent interests.
Alliances are groupings based on mutual interests and needs that can best be met, or perhaps only be met, by associating with parties whose help is sought to meet those interests. A pertinent example is the de facto alliance between the secular Left and extremist Islam today — ideologically the two are poles apart, and extremist Muslims would have no hesitation in physically eradicating such people from any society they controlled. But the two perceive each other as useful (which of course brings to mind Lenin’s description of Western liberals and socialists who often allied themselves with Communists as “useful idiots”).
It is perfectly true that conservative American Christians and Jews who care about the Torah of Moses share many interests, values and morals. But then, religious — even extremist — Muslims and Jews also have much in common. Indeed, as Jews we probably have even more in common with our Ishmaelite cousins. Yet both Muslims and Christians think that as “non-believers” we are headed to Hell, and both groups would like to convert us.
Conservative Christians, however, are our allies in the current struggle for the land of Israel and the Muslims are our adversaries who wish to see the Jewish presence there — if not the Jews themselves — terminated. Whether conservative Christians want to convert us is politically irrelevant.
When Israel was founded, the Soviet Union was one of its important allies in the political arena and through its Czech puppet supplied the newborn state with the weapons it needed for survival in the 1948 war. After Russia’s interest — the expulsion of the British from the area — was met, the Soviets turned against Israel.
The same thing happened with France, which at one time was one of Israel’s key allies, supplying its air force and helping in the construction of its nuclear facilities. But with the ascent of Charles de Gaulle and a changed perception of French interests, France became Israel’s main European enemy. This is the nature of politics, and always has been.
There is, of course, one partial exception to the above rule, and that is the alliance between the United States and Israel. While it too is based on mutual interests, there is something else present. Walter Laqueur, the widely respected historian of Israel and Zionism, once said in a talk to a Jewish university group in London that his conclusion, after studying the American-Israeli relationship, was that beneath the standard politics there was a genuine American commitment to Israel that went far beyond mere political self-interest and that was nearly a moral commitment in itself.
To anyone who rationally looks at the world and what is happening in it, there is no doubt that conservative Christians — mostly but not exclusively American — are just about the only non-Jewish group allied with Israel in the struggle against the Palestinians and Muslims in general. Their reasons and interests are up-front and well known. It is said that Jews fear these allies because they wish to Christianize America. This is peculiar: America was always a Christian country, and in its heartland very much still is. Indeed, America is the only Christian country left in the Western world. There is not a single truly Christian country in Europe. (The UK is so secular that Christian Africa has been trying to convert it back to Christianity.)
No matter how successful conservative Christians are in Christianizing contemporary America, the country will remain considerably more secular than was the case until well into the 1970`s. In any case, the strong Christian cultural influence on American life during the first 200 years of the nation’s existence hardly impeded the development of Jewish life in the U.S.
It is not at all strange that allies of the present could be adversaries in the future and vice versa. You meet each crisis as it comes, if it comes. What is it that many Jews really fear from the perceived power of the Christian Right? They fear for the secular leftist causes, beliefs, practices and values that they espouse and hold dear. But then, Torah Judaism is even stronger in its opposition to what these secular Jews believe and how they define themselves.
It is said that Jews fear conservative Christians because they wish to convert us. Indeed they do. But so what? Secularists, especially leftists and liberals, also seek to convert the Jews — to their ideology, world outlook, lifestyle, values, and morals. Many on the Left, going back to Karl Marx, see the very existence of the Jews, especially Torah-observant Jews, as a problem — and the cause of many if not all of the evils in the world.
Today it is leftists and liberals, not conservative Christians, who threaten the existence of the Jews as a people and who stand in opposition to various aspects of Judaism. Here in the UK, shechita and Jewish education are not under attack by fundamentalist Christians, but by secular leftists.
Furthermore, because we accept the help of conservative Christians in one sphere, it doesn’t mean we can’t oppose them when it comes to specific policies that threaten Jewish interests in other areas. You cannot do this with a good many leftists and liberals, whose opposition to Judaism, like that of fundamentalist Muslims, is existential and total.
As touched on above, the reason many Jews are reluctant to acknowledge or accept any alliance with conservative Christians — when clearly it is secular liberals who are the greater threat, both immediate and long term — is that such an alliance exposes a major fault line among those who call themselves Jews, a fault line many Jews prefer to pretend does not exist.
Namely, it makes salient the division between secular and Reform Jews on the one hand, and Torah-observant Jews on the other. It reveals to one and all that there is not one Jewish people, but at least two, and that these two peoples are often highly antagonistic to one another, each with a different conception of what “Jewish” means. Each has different interests, and these interests frequently clash.
Life would be so much easier for many Jews if conservative Christians were open, rabid anti-Semites. Unfortunately for such Jews, these are found largely on the Left.
Levi Sokolic is an anthropologist and IT consultant living in the UK. His doctoral thesis examined the adaptation of Orthodox Jewish society to the social and cultural changes of the 19th and 20th centuries.
"Anybody who is afraid of being converted to Christianity needs Christianity, and they know it."
It is in their best interest to eventually convert to Christianity. In the long term conversion means survival.
Stalin made alliance with Hitler. They were really very much alike. They were both anti-Jewish Socialists.
Sometimes I think that the main reason Hitler hated the Jews was because Hitler WAS a committed Socialist, and he ran into German Communists who didn't want to let Gentiles into Communist leadership positions
Venezuela is presently ruled by a Marxist regime, led by Hugo Chavez. One-half of Columbia is controlled by narcoterrorists and Communist guerrillas. Brazil is also led by a Marxist. Mexico was secularized in the 1920s under an anti-clerical regime. Harsh restrictions were placed on the Catholic Church that were not fully lifted until the 1980s. Argentina is led by a leftist prime minister. Overall, the devout Catholicism that once characterized virtually all of Latin America is largely a thing of the past.
I am in over my head, but my understanding is that the Jews are the chosen people, but G*d in wisdom extended to all others the gift of salvation thru Jesus Christ. Ergo Jews and Chistians follow a diferent path towards the same destination, one by birthright (Jews) and the other by following the teaching of Christ. Am I wrong?
Except for the fact that the people are themselves still quite Catholic, and the laws reflect Catholic morality. Abortion is illegal all across Latin America. Not Africa, which isn't Christian or Western. Not Asia, which isn't Western or Christian. Not Europe (although it is generally more restricted that it is in the US). And not in the USA nor Canada.
Recall that the thing I was responding to was the argument that the USA is the only "Christian nation" left in the West.
If I were to use the "status of government" test you've applied to Latin America to reject their status as "Christian societies", then America is in no sense a Christian society either. American government is forcibly secular, and American courts tolerate no religion in schooling at all, however innocuous. American law does not support Christian moral values.
If we use the government structure test to rule out Latin America as Christian Western societies, then we must a fortiori reject any notion whatever of the United States as a Christian society, for the structure of American government is much more overtly and militantly anti-religion than most of Latin America, and the content of American laws is considerably less Christian than that of Latin American law.
I could accept the argument that there is no longer ANY Christian society in the world. But I cannot accept the generalization that the US is the last Christian society in the Western World. There may be secularizing governments in Latin America, but Latin America remains much more Christian than North America.
interesting.
But don't, when alliances are based on "interests", you lose interest in distinguishing good from evil?
So true about the colleges! But don't forget the looming problems from Venezuela and Nicaragua and their Fidel-inspired infiltrations throughout Central and South America.
You are right on both accounts.
If we use the government structure test to rule out Latin America as Christian Western societies, then we must a fortiori reject any notion whatever of the United States as a Christian society, for the structure of American government is much more overtly and militantly anti-religion than most of Latin America
True enough, if we exclude Venezuela, Cuba, and Brazil from the mix. However, the formal structure of American government, as expressed in the original intent of the Constitution, was far from irreligious. Until the 20th Century, the general consensus was that the United States government was established on Biblical principles. Further, Anglo-American common law was to a great extent based on Biblical concepts of justice. Latin American law, like that of continental Europe, was based on the Napoleonic Code, which largely drew its inspiration from classical Greco-Roman precedents.
American government in 2005 differs greatly from the ideals of the Founding Fathers and the practices of the first 125 years of American independence.
You're missing a step in the development of the Civil Law, incorporated uniformly across Europe by the French Civil Code, the famous "Code Napoleon".
And the step you are missing is that Civil Law was not "rediscovered" by Napoleon, and didn't come down to the modern European world DIRECTLY from the Romans and Byzantines. It came, rather, through an intermediary: the Canon Law of the Catholic Church. Civil Law was taught at Bologna and Paris, in the Catholic Universities, as part of the unicity between secular and ecclesiastical law. And indeed the specific inspiration for the Civil Law, THE origin of most of it, was the Corpus Iuris Civilis of Justinian. Justinian's Code has two features about it which are crucial. The one is that it codifies most of what is recodified in Canon Law and Civil Law. Napoleon's contribution was not to create a new legal regime for Europe, but to unify the different branches of a very old civil law. The second is that Justinian's Code itself was a thoroughly Christian law code. Justinian's whole legal enterprise in his Code was to take the old, pagan Roman civil law and improve its harshness by Christian principles. Thus, principles of equity were introduced which were quite foreign to pagan Roman mechanical legalism.
So, drill down through the Napoleonic Code, and you will find the Canon Law, which was expressly Catholic and which was the practical law of equity governing all of Europe (England included - the Common Law extended not to equity and the ecclesial courts or Chancery, which handled some of the most crucial legal affairs of people: marital law was not Common Law but ecclesial, which is to say Canon, in England as everywhere else in Europe, at least prior to the Reformation). Drill down through the Canon Law, and you will find Justinian's Code, which was an expressly Christian undertaking (in a way that Napoleon's Code was not).
I agree that the original intent of American government was not irreligious. But then, it would have been surprising indeed, revolutionary, for there to have been ANY irreligious, non-Christian-based government in the European world in 1776. The French "Declaration of Rights of Man and of Citizen" reposes on God-given rights as well.
The violent passions of the Terror swept away the original Providential belief of the mild revolutionaries who first led France into change. When they stepped down, really quite unfortunately, the field was open to radicals, who then resorted to violence against every edifice that could challenge their power, including the nobility and the Church and, really, anyone else who was organized and not of their party.
In looking at the relative state of national laws, I maintain that the most important things are the best indicators of the state of the national soul of a country. Those Christian countries that continue to outlaw abortion are the ones that adhere closest to the truth on the things that really matter...at least in my opinion.
Very well said.
And much of Latin America worship a strange mix of Catholicism and tribal paganism.
It seems Switzerland is still a comparatively Christian nation.
So's Ireland.
So's the Philippines.
I've called this ass on this before.
He is purposefully showing disrespect to Christians by lower-casing the first letter.
Stuff it and whatever it is you believe, ZC.
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