A lot of folks have been talking about Texas congressman Louie Gohmert’s staggering speech on the House floor last week saying that Barack Hussein Obama has created another Ottoman Empire through his failures in the Middle East.
I happened to watch Gohmert’s speech and was struck by his characterization of US Israel policy, and also of Zionism’s goals. Note two things in this speech. First, the resonance of the Democratic floor uprising over the Jerusalem plank in the platform– the fat is in the fire! And note that Israeli founder, the Labor Zionist Ben Gurion, is citing the bible in Netanyahu’s rendering. So Zionism has a religious claim to it, always; and I thought we wanted fundamentalists out of our politics! Gohmert:
Look what he has helped do in the Middle East. It’s a new Ottoman Empire. Thank you, President Barack Hussein Obama. This will be quite a legacy for you. I’m not one of those who says [Obama] is not a Christian. All I know is that’s between him and God. What I do know is he has helped jump-start a new Ottoman Empire and left our friend and ally Israel so vulnerable in this sea of radicalism that he has helped bring to the surface…
this administration thinks both the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring are a great thing, even though it’s brought to power radicals who want to destroy America, who want to destroy Israel. How frustrating for our friend Israel….
We were told during the conventions that the Republicans do not have a franchise on God. Everybody at the Democratic convention was saying, We love God; we worship God; we love Israel; we like Jerusalem as a capital. We heard all this stuff until there was a vote, and, holy cow, we saw plain and clear that everybody in the Democratic convention does not want God mentioned. They don’t want to hear about God. They don’t want to hear about Jerusalem being the capital of Israel. They don’t want it. They apparently side more with the Palestinians than they do those who were possessing and in that land 1,600 years before there was a man ever talked about named Muhammad is all you can figure. King David was there in Hebron, which now we’re told, Oh, do the Israelis have history in this land? It’s where David ruled for 7 years, about 16 to 17 centuries before anybody had ever heard of Muhammad. How would they not have a history in that land?
I was talking to Prime Minister Netanyahu about the history in the land. He mentioned the story of Ben-Gurion, who led the ragtag forces to fight their way back to Jerusalem after overwhelming forces had driven them out. The story was–and this was the first I had heard it, was when the Prime Minister mentioned it to me, but I’ve heard it a number of times since. He said Ben Gurion was challenged with, What is your voucher for claiming this land? And Prime Minister Netanyahu used the word, “Bible.” I’m sure it was a Torah. He said that Ben Gurion held up a Bible and yelled, This is my voucher.
Do they have a history in the land? How blind do you have to be to not see it?
The more that religious Zionists are provided with a platform to espouse their bizarre cult views, the more they reduce Zionism and Judaism to utter claptrap, superstition and nonsense.
Louis Gohmert’s rambling, fact-free and logic-free thoughts are a perfect illustration of the problem. In some ways, even Scientologists are able to make more sense than Gohmert, Robertson, Brog, Hagee, Huckabee, Bachmann, etc.
A century ago Judaism was not about “vouchers.” Since the rise of Zionism, many of my fellow Jews can’t seem to tell the difference, constantly conflating Israel with Jewishness, prescribing Birthright tours as the elixir to prevent estrangement of our youth, who are fed a diet of pro-Israel B.S. and endless Holocaust memorialization. No wonder they’re estranged. And even the rabbis of the mainstream movements cannot bring themselves to criticize Israel, the “Jewish state” — as if all of us were in agreement about the aims of this country. At some point we’ll all have to ask ourselves if Judaism can survive — has survived — Zionism. I don’t want to belong to a “voucher-based” religion that believes in real estate deeds more than justice.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a monolithic and a deeply homophobic, misogynic force.
It’s a mendacious development.
But it was also created in 1929.
As far as I know, even birthers admit that Obama wasn’t born back then(whichever country you prefer).
Obama is at once an amateur, a dimwit who is failing at everything, yet he is a superhuman shaping all the world’s events (as long as those events are bad, in the eyes of the GOP) when it suits them.
These things just shows more of the typical Republican schizophrenia, hypercharged.
(Addendum: I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the anecdote about Ben-Gurion was actually true. He was a lot nuttier than a lot of people really know about).
Them Muslims really oughta lighten up. Heck, it’s just a book and that guy in the movie is just a guy. What’s that you say about the Bible? Bite your tongue, blasphemer! This here’s the Holy Word of Gawd Almighty! Taking the name of the Lord in vain, you say? Am not! I should be stoned (If I’m not already)? Savage!
>> It’s where David ruled for 7 years …
That’s it? I’m pretty sure the Ottoman Empire was around for more than 7 years. So much for David.