Month: August 2025

Zionism: Dismantling the Cross, the Judeo-Christian Deception

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There was an act of vandalism in Wales.  A Christian cross made of stones, which had been on a hill in the countryside for half a century, was torn apart by Jewish tourists who used the stones to create the ‘Star of David’ or hexagram shape.  This act goes beyond total disrespect and destruction of a Christian display, but it is also symbolic of what Zionism is and what it has been doing to Christianity in the West.  

Zionism isn’t Jewish.  Many Jews, even who live in the Holy Lands, are as fully opposed to the ethno-supremacist state called Israel as their Christian and Muslim neighbors.  It is not something allowed by their religion, they insist, and I’ll let Jewish people debate their theology for themselves.  But the vast majority of Zionists aren’t Jews nor do they live in Israel.  Most Zionists were American Protestants who have become ensnared in this political ideology that rearranges parts of the Bible to justify taking property from a population who have lived in the birthplace of Christ since his birth.

Christian Zionism is an oxymoron.  It takes two opposites, the kingdoms of the world offered to Jesus during his temptation that he rejected and acts like Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, who goes back deceptively to get the gifts Naaman tried to give to his master and was then struck down with leprosy by the curse of his master.  There are many in church pews today who have betrayed their master and have rearranged the timeline of Scripture to embrace an evil replacement of the way of Christ.  They dismantle the cross and support Zionism instead.

Schofield’s Coup: Dismantling the Cross

In 1909 a new Bible was published.  It used the same English translation of the popular King James version and yet added notes of commentary written by a man named Cyrus Ingerson Scofield.  Dispensationalism is a relatively new interpretation of Biblical texts that started in the early to mid 19th century, initially invented by John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren in Britain, but it took Scofield’s in text commentaries distributed widely to finally sell it.

We could get into questions of exactly who Scofield was, his character, that he was a Confederate soldier (deserter?); who was an alcoholic who abandoned his family; a man who had defrauded several prominent Republicans with a railroad scam; who was arrested and jailed in St Louis for forgery and embezzlement, then had a dramatic conversion to Christianity and yet this essay will stick to the work he was known for: His popularization of a novel theological stance dividing Israel and the church in Scripture.

In the Christian Bible there’s a fairly obvious shift in tone between the Old Testament (or Jewish Torah, prophets, etc) and teachings of Jesus in the Gospels.  The conventional Christian perspective is that Jesus came as fulfillment of the law and supercedes the covenant that was given to Abram who became Abraham.  But Scofield turns the clock back, he ignores what the Epistles tell us about correct understanding, and he adds an idea that there are essentially two paths to God—one going through Jesus and the cross, the other by the Old Covenant.

Christianity, according to the Apostles, is the faithful remnant.  Israel is now the Church and the Church is the true Israel.

Where this was just an amateur mistake or an intentional deception doesn’t matter.  It has resulted in a battle between those who basically claim that “one way, Jesus” is anti-Semitic statement and smear it as being “Replacement Theology” (ironic, given this was, is, and will remain the only orthodox Christian perspective) for saying that the New Covenant continuation of God’s plan and necessary for salvation.  It ignores the New Testament books where St Paul and others give a correct Christian perspective of the covenant given to Abraham.

Always Through Faith, Never Bloodlines…

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

(John 14:6 NIV)

I’m not nearly as dogmatic as some when it comes to passages like John 14:6 (above) and yet do see it as foundational to correct application of Scripture from the Christian perspective.  Jesus was making a definitive statement about who he is and the absolute requirements for salvation.  

The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ.

 (Galatians 3:16 NIV)

1) The passage above makes it very clear that the seed of Abraham is singular: Christ Jesus.  St Paul is saying that Jesus is that promise given to Abraham, that the promise is what bestows grace and continues:

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

(Galatians 3:26-29 NIV)

2) We all become Abraham’s seed though faith in Christ and there is no distinction by religion (keeping the law) or race.  In other words, Jews and Gentiles are both saved in the exact same way and the old distinctions become moot in fulfillment of the promise:

It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.  For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.  Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.  As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not. 

(Romans 4:13-17 NIV)

3) Faith in Christ, nothing else, saves.

The Church and true Israel are the same, it is a group that is defined by faith both when those the Jews looked forward towards the promise and also in the Gospel fulfillment of the promise in the seed of Abraham that is Jesus.

Scofield, however, to justify Zionism, tries to drive a wedge between Christ and being the full fulfillment of promise or the seed of Abraham.  His footnotes take a passage like Genesis 12:3, addressed specifically to Abraham, about blessing those who bless him and cursing those who curse and then just hallucinate that it is speaking about all who ever have descended (but only through Isaac) from Abraham—no matter if they are faithful or not.  But this is in direct and total contradiction to the passages quoted above and simply meaning inserted into the text by a man fooled himself or just a fraud.

The Judeo-Christian Deception 

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 

(2 Corinthians 6:14-15 NIV)

Judeo-Christian is a term originally coined to describe a Jewish convert to Christianity, a Jewish Christian, but the usage has since evolved to become an oxymoronic coupling of religious traditions that formed up in full opposition to each other.  There is overlap, certainly, both started as religions rooted in the Hebrew Bible.  But one of the sides has rejected Christ, and is anti-Christ, while the other believes that the Torah can truly only be understood through the lens of Christ.  If your values start with something other than Christ then they’re not the same values as a Christian.

Starting with Jesus instructing his followers to let their ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and ‘no’ be ‘no’ (Matt 5:37) or to use simple honest language.  So much dishonesty comes in from of a subtle twist of words.  For example, calling majorly invasive surgeries and hormone treatments “gender-affirming care” is just not the plain reality of what is being done.  Semantics is all about describing reality, but can also be about distorting the perspective and an art of deception.  There is no similar rule about using honest speech in Talmudic or Zionist Judiasm.  Mossad, the intelligence agency of Israel, used “By way of deception, thou shall do war.“

Stratagem is part of war theory and tactics.  But it is not part of Christianity.  St Paul tells us:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 

(Ephesians 6:12 NIV)

The Christian doesn’t overcome the ‘enemy’ with deception.  They overcome them with good, with honesty and love, this is to reject the methods and means of those who see those outside their religio-political group as being terrorists to be destroyed or resource to exploited.  We are not required to reason with animals, we herd them, slaughter them, shoot them for sport, and impose our will—and is exactly what the Zionists do to those who get in their way.  There is no command to love enemies or good to those who those who hate you as there is in Christianity:

But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. 

(Luke 6:27-31 NIV)

Interestingly enough, Islam has a similar teaching, but we would never call this area of confluence Islamo-Christian values.  So why do we attempt to add the leaven of the Pharisees through this linguistic maneuver that marries us to a religion that has values completely different despite a similar origin point?  The “Synagogue of Satan” (Rev 2:9, 3:9) has never stopped hating Christ or His followers, they have simply committed to a long-game strategy of subversion or using the naive to do their bidding.  This isn’t even a value judgment, I’m not saying you should not be Jewish if that is what you believe is, but you can’t be a Judeo-Christian because it is a contradiction of terms.

If a suggestion of “Islamo-Christian values” causes you to erupt in riotous laughter, then the combo of the way of Jesus with that of Zionism is doubly as ridiculous.  

Philosophically there is zero compatibility in these perspectives.  It is impossible to love and bomb your enemies.  You cannot claim to follow Jesus, who rejected worldly power, and then support the violence being done in the name of Israeli statehood.  Zionism is a “blood and soil” nationalist movement, and is all about land, all about ethnicity, whereas the kingdom of heaven is about repentance, self-sacrifice and meekness.  The only thing that is sacrificed in ‘Christian’ Zionism is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the credibility of our collective witness—so our partners can slather themselves in misguided pride for being the chosen race.

Not good, especially when one is pulling the other backwards…

The real purpose of a term “Judeo-Christian values” is political and propaganda.  It is to throw a yoke on the neck of Christians and force them to work together.  It is simply a way to control one side and normalize the other.  There is no backward compatibility, a believer in Christ does not share values with those who reject him, with those who cling to national pride rather than the cross, and subjugate rather than serve.  Jesus opened his arms to children—Zionists justify killing children by starvation, by denying them care or even by burning them alive and gunning them down.

Origen, who is considered to be a church Father, may have toyed with universalism—an idea that all would be saved in the end.  But there is no parallel path that is given for anyone according to Jesus or the Apostles, most especially not for those who are far removed from Jesus as the Nazis—despite their claims to the contrary.  We cannot let the cross of Christ be rearranged into the symbol of a worldly kingdom.  Having some things in common with those who rejected Christ doesn’t make us the same.

The Greater Good Fallacy: Morality Without Excuses

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Setting aside moral principle to serve a greater good means you have no moral principles.

Moral relativists love their hypotheticals: “What if you had a chance to travel back in time and kill baby Hitler?”

Once they can establish the answer as “yes” then pretty soon thereafter anyone who stands in their way is a Nazi. Or, in other words, the morality of “everyone I don’t like is literally Hitler” where you will basically become Hitler killing all of those baby Hitlers before they become Hitler—kill them all, you can’t be too careful!

It is ends justify the means morality that justifies, ultimately, the most heinous and horrible acts by one projecting a possible outcome as an excuse to violate another person—in some cases even before they drew a first breath.

For example, the Freakonomics case for abortion pointing to how inner-city crime rates dropped in correlation with black babies being killed—used as a moral justification.

Contrast this with Matthew 12:20, with Jesus: “He will not break a crushed blade of grass…”

This prejudice is behind every genocide or ethnic cleansing campaign. The excuse: “We don’t want to kill babies, but if we don’t ‘mow the grass‘ then they’ll grow up to kill us.” I mean, it’s not like that attitude will create a backlash or stir the anger of the population being cynically targeted for a trimming back, right?

Oh well, at least when you are starting at the very bottom, relying on self-defense by precrime judgment and a doctrine of preemption, there is no slippery slope to be concerned about: Morality becomes a race of who can eliminate their potential opponents most efficiently rather than a social contract between people trying to live peaceably with their neighbors.

(Im)Morality of the ‘God’s Plan’ Excuse…

One of the sidesteps of treating others with human decency is that it is all part of God’s plan. Biblical fundamentalists often use a similar kind of ends justify the means moral reasoning as the far-left—except they dress it up as faith and seeing the bigger perspective.

This is their excuse to be Biblical, but not Christian. The moment you raise a moral objection about anything they’ll find their loophole in Scripture: “Oh, yes, God said not to take innocent life, but He also told Israel to wipeout the Amalekites, so it is up to us to decide who gets slaughtered or saved.”

This is the God’s eye perspective Jesus addressed in Mark 7:10-12:

For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)—then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother.

What the Biblical experts were doing was using one command to nullify another by a greater good moral reasoning. Of course they, in their own minds, were the more spiritual. They had convinced themselves that—by neglecting their duty to parents—they were seeing things from God’s eyes and just better than everyone else. But, in reality, this is rationalization and an excuse to be immoral.

Morality isn’t about taking the God’s eye view, it is about our practically applying the Golden Rule or the law of reciprocity described in the passages below:

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Matthew 6:14-15 NIV

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Matthew 7:1-5 NIV

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

James 2:12-13 NIV

See the pattern here?

What we put into the world is what we will receive back. If we do not show any mercy to those under our power, then we will not be shown mercy. And that’s the point behind the parable that Jesus told about a man forgiven a great debt—then goes out demanding repayment from the man who owed him.

Seeing things from God’s perspective—according to this—is to apply Micah 6:8:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

There are no excuses to set aside normal morality for the sake of God’s plan.

There is no special exemption given for a chosen race of people either.

Throughout history the most evil of men have excused their atrocities using God’s will. It is the reasoning of the Crusader’s command, based on 2 Timothy 2:19, of “Kill them, for God knows his own.”

The ‘Christian’ West killed more innocent people in the Holy Lands than Islamists.

With that kind of thinking, everything will become justified as part of God’s plan if you zoom it out and, therefore, we can’t take a moral stand against anything. If it is God’s plan that babies are killed—then who are you to decry it as murder?

This is logic which can neutralize every moral stance or turn every evil deed into some kind of ultimate good—if you just see it from ‘God’s perspective’ it all becomes okay.  Of course, at that point, accepting this, there is no morality—once everything is relative to God’s will or the outcome that we call good.

It essentially replaces the Golden Rule with: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you—except if you can explain away the abuse by some kind of greater good excuse.”

Act Justly, Love Mercy, That’s the Conclusion…

Moral relativism, whether cloaked in the guise of achieving a greater good or justified as part of God’s plan, erodes the foundation of true morality—the Golden Rule.

By excusing heinous acts through hypothetical necessities or our ‘divine’ rationalizations, we are becoming the very monsters we claim to oppose. True morality demands consistency: acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly, without excuses or every resorting to preemptive judgments or selective exemptions.

When we abandon moral principles for the sake of outcomes we desire or divine loopholes, we replace mutual respect or an opportunity for understanding with a race to eliminate every perceived threat, leaving no room for peace, forgiveness, or humanity.

The measure we use—whether it is mercy or judgment—will be measured back to us, and no appeal to a higher purpose can absolve us of that final reckoning.

When we cut someone off it is a mistake, when they do it to us—we go ballistic.

Post script: Morality is staying in our lane and abiding by the rules. Playing God is running someone off the road for daring to cross into our lane. It is about our keeping the law—not our enforcing of it. And when we start to justify the abuse of others, as Biblical, then we turn into a violator. James 4:11 explains: “When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.” The end result of exemption of ourselves using God’s plan as cover is a cycle of violence where all see themselves as righteous—even while doing incredible evil.

Israel’s Legacy of Terrorism and the Systematic Sabotage of Palestinian Statehood

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The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a tangled web of hypocrisy and intrigue where Israel, under Likud regime and Benjamin Netanyahu’s rule, wields the specter of “Palestinian terrorism” as a means of denying Palestinian statehood—while ignoring its own history of terror and ongoing policies that fuel violence in response. 

The narrative that a Palestinian state would empower terrorists is a deliberate distortion, rooted in Israel’s refusal to relinquish control over the West Bank and Gaza.  Far from being a security necessity, this stance masks a calculated campaign to completely annex Palestinian lands, perpetuated through their decades of occupation, settler violence, and even complicity in bolstering Hamas to fracture Palestinian unity. Israel’s own terrorist origins, its role in fostering extremism, and its relentless aggression against neighbors demand a reckoning: Palestinian sovereignty, backed by international intervention, is the only path to dismantle this cycle of oppression and hold Israel’s rogue regime accountable.

The framing of this conflict as having started on October 7th and only addressing the Palestinian response to Israeli abuses, is to deny the reality of the situation: This all started with a massive migration from Europe—followed thereafter by the terror campaign of Zionist gangs that would eventually be incorporated into an Israeli state.

We’re told we can’t reward terror, but that is the only reason why Israel exists and precisely what has inspired the Palestinian resistance.

Israel’s Terrorist Foundations and the Double Standard

Israel’s establishment in 1948 was forged through brutal acts of terrorism by Zionist militias, a fact conveniently erased from the narrative of those condemning Palestinian resistance. Groups like the Irgun and Lehi orchestrated atrocities such as the 1946 King David Hotel bombing—which killed 91 people, and the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre—where over 100 Palestinians were slaughtered, and catalyzing the Nakba—the ethnic cleansing of 711,000 Palestinians.  These acts, branded terrorism by the British and Arabs, were pivotal in securing Israel’s statehood, endorsed by the 1947 UN Partition Plan despite Arab opposition.  Yet, when Palestinians resist occupation, their actions are demonized to justify denying them the same right to self-determination. This glaring double standard exposes Israel’s complete moral bankruptcy: Zionist terror was a stepping stone to statehood, but Palestinian resistance against illegal occupation is weaponized to perpetuate statelessness.

We don’t remember April 9th, 1948, when Zionist settler militias (that later were incorporated into the IDF) murdered a village of indigenous Palestinian people.  And probably because it was so soon eclipsed by other Zionist atrocities.

Israel’s Iron Grip on Palestinian Territories

Since seizing the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, Israel has enforced a brutal occupation designed to strangle Palestinian aspirations. The West Bank is carved up by over 400,000 settlers in Area C—which comprises 60% of the territory—with illegal settlement expansion accelerating under Netanyahu’s government. And finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s recent call for “sovereignty” over the West Bank lays bare an annexationist agenda. In Gaza, a suffocating blockade since 2007 has trapped 2 million people, with 90% displaced at some point in 2024 due to IDF operations that razed civilian infrastructure. Settler violence in the West Bank has surged, with 2,848 attacks recorded between October 2023 and May 2025, often aided and abetted by Israeli forces. These are not defensive measures but a deliberate strategy of aggression to erase Palestinian claims to their land—rendering a viable state impossible.

Divide and steal has been the plan from day one.  The Likud party knew their original “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty” platform would be impossible all at once—their final solution plan would require the right opportunities over time.

October 7: A Pretext for Escalated Aggression

Israel’s fixation on Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, which killed 1,200 Israelis (many by the IDF “friendly fire” or even intentionally) and took 253 hostages, serves as a convenient pretext to justify genocidal operations in Gaza, where over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed.  This selective outrage ignores a century of Palestinian suffering: the Nakba, decades of occupation, and a blockade that had turned Gaza into an open-air prison. The First and Second Intifadas were uprisings against this oppression—met with Israel’s disproportionate violence. By framing October 7 as the conflict’s defining moment, Israel deflects from its own role in perpetuating the conditions that breed resistance. Smotrich’s annexationist rhetoric and the IDF’s devastation of Gaza reveal October 7 as a manufactured justification for territorial conquest, not a standalone tragedy.

You don’t need to be a military expert to know this is damage in keeping with small arms like what Hamas employs.  It looks more like what one would expect from an attack helicopter or tank.

Likud’s Complicity in Terrorism: The Hamas Connection

Far from being a mere victim of Hamas, Israel’s Likud-led government has actively propped up the group to sabotage Palestinian statehood. In 2019, Netanyahu told Likud members, “anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas.”

Since 2018, Israel has greenlit Qatari funds to Hamas, ostensibly for humanitarian aid but effectively to keep Gaza under Hamas’s control and prevent a unified Palestinian front with the Palestinian Authority. This cynical strategy ensures a divided enemy, stalling peace talks and justifying Israel’s refusal to negotiate. By bankrolling Hamas, Likud has fueled the very terrorism it decries, exposing its duplicity in undermining a two-state solution.

Netanyahu paraded with a coffin and a noose shortly before his Israeli rival was killed by a Likud inspired terrorist.

The 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who pursued peace through the Oslo Accords, further unmasks Likud’s extremist ties. While not directly responsible, Netanyahu’s incendiary rhetoric—joining protests where Rabin was branded a traitor and involving a coffin—fueled the climate that led to his murder by a right-wing zealot. This act derailed Oslo’s promise of Palestinian statehood, empowering Likud’s hardline agenda and cementing its legacy of sabotaging peace through violence and incitement.

Palestinian Sovereignty: A Counter to Israel’s Terrorism

Palestinian statehood is not a concession to terrorism but a necessary antidote to Israel’s state-sponsored aggression.  This hope would undermine any lingering support for Hamas in Palestinian territories.  People support violent solutions when they feel they’re left with no other options.  Finally recognizing a Palestinian right to self-determination and granting them real protection from a decades long onslaught will help disarm the conflict. End the oppression and it will end the reason for resistance.

This kind of destruction has nothing to do with Hamas and everything to do with making the land inhabitable for the rightful owners.

The 2024 UN General Assembly, backed by Saudi Arabia and Norway, reaffirmed support for a two-state solution based on 1967 borders, a vision the Palestinian Authority endorses. Yet, Israel’s rejection, coupled with Hamas’s refusal to fully recognize Israel, underscores the need for some international intervention. Deploying neutral peacekeepers, modeled on the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, could help protect Palestinians from IDF terrorism and settler violence while enabling governance free from Israel’s stranglehold. The Zionist opposition to such measures, viewing them as threats to their control, only highlights intent to perpetuate occupation.

Sanctions must target Israel’s rogue regime to curb its terrorist policies. Germany’s 2024 arms sale suspension and sanctions on ministers like Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir for backing settler violence are steps forward. The International Criminal Court’s 2024 arrest warrants for both Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for war crimes in Gaza signal a growing demand for accountability. Broad sanctions, though resisted by the US, could pressure Israel to dismantle settlements and end the blockade, forcing compliance with international law.

Conclusion: Holding Israel’s Terrorist Regime Accountable

Israel’s Likud-led regime, under Netanyahu, has woven a tapestry of terrorism and manipulation to thwart Palestinian statehood. From its origins in Zionist militias’ violence to its current policies of occupation, continual settlement expansion, and complicity with Hamas, the Zionist state has systematically denied Palestinians their right to self-determination. The narrative of Palestinian terrorism is a smokescreen, used to deflect from Israel’s own terrorist legacy and ongoing acts of aggression.  October 7 was not an isolated act but a consequence of decades of oppression, exploited to justify further land grabs.

International intervention, both peacekeepers and sanctions are steps to dismantle this cycle of violence, ensuring Palestinian sovereignty and holding Israel’s extremist regime accountable for its crimes. Only by confronting Israel’s terrorism can a just peace, rooted in a two-state solution, be achieved.  The whole region would change if the Zionist regime were forced to “defend” without being so offensive—this is the only path for an Israel that survives the test of time.

Honor Killing Versus Western Values

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The Old Testament is full of things those of us born in the liberal West would find to be abhorrent. It was a wildy different culture. But, the one thing most foreign—in an age when we coddle our children to death—is parents literally killing children when they stepped too far out of line:

Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.

(Exodus 21:17 NIV)

Simple. Concrete.

Or shall we say, written in stone?

If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.

(Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NIV)

“Stoned,” in this context, doesn’t mean legalized marijuana.

But if you do like a little smoke:

If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she must be burned in the fire.

(Leviticus 21:9 NIV)

Honor killing, in the West, is associated with Islam. Yet, interestingly enough, not once is it mentioned in the Qu’ran. However, there are multiple references in the Bible starting with those that are quoted above. Children who disobeyed—or who otherwise brought shame to their parents—were to be put to death. This punishment was not a choice or an option. No, it was a “must be put to death” command to keep Israel pure. And no doubt this teaching in the Old Testament is part of what inspires the practice today and why honor killing continues to be part of traditional cultures in the world.

And this went goes beyond killing children for their rebellion or sexual sin.

There is also this account:

And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.

[The, oh no part, where he returns home and is greeted by his beloved daughter.]

After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin. From this comes the Israelite tradition that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

(Judges 11:30-31, 39-40 NIV)

Umm, what?!?

Some commentaries try to explain away the most plain reading about what happened to the daughter of Jephthah. But if his vow is that important to him and a cause for her to mourn for two months, why would it be any less than what he said he would do? This is a religious tradition where the big patriarch, Abraham, was ready to kill his own son as a way to please God—so their ‘Biblical’ values seem very different from ours.

Even in the New Testament we start where Joseph is contemplating the out-of-wedlock pregnancy of Mary—his betrothed—does he spare her by having her sent away quietly or does he tell the world about her dishonoring him? What does an honorable man do? It is life or death. In the Gospel of Matthew, where this account was given, four other dreams are recorded and all of them for the purpose of saving lives.

Joseph’s dream saved Mary’s life.

There is this clear expectation: Honor or death. Or maybe honor and death?

It is important to note that Old Testament laws are longer applied even in the Jewish context. The Western world has liberalized all. Sure, you might still get caught on the Coldplay camera and cancelled for adultery—pelted with stones (figuratively) in form of memes and social media roasting—but not killed. We still judge sexual sin. That said, we don’t use Capital punishment for that or really much of anything anymore.

The Triumph of Liberalism in the West

In modern Western culture, promiscuous daughters or rebellious sons rarely provoke shame; some parents even take pride in their children’s nonconformity. How did this transformation occur?

Not very long ago that Europeans were a rather rowdy bunch—burning heretics and pillaging the world. They defended slavery as compassionate and Biblically endorsed. Cousin marriage was common and beating your wife not a big deal. This was ‘Christian’ civilization.

But, starting in the Enlightenment, human rights slowly expanded and eventually were extended to women and racial minorities. Individual liberty, religious rights, primacy of reason and scientific progress started with this movement in the West.

It took a few centuries for Enlightenment ideals to take hold—but the American colonies became a breeding ground for this new thinking and a liberal revolution. The French would follow suit and liberalism eventually swept through all of Western Europe.

This liberalism wasn’t always sunshine and roses. Napoleon had marched across the European continent at the same time as the Americans were manifesting their destiny all the way to the Philippines. Proclaiming “liberty and justice for all” while trampling the indigenous people underfoot. And yet, long-term, it has led to the assumptions we don’t even question in the West.

Even our most traditional religious types, who decry feminism, oppose the sexual revolution and vigorously defend their own entitled status as men, do an about-face when it comes to those getting ‘Biblical’ against sexual immorality according to the texts. I mean, I guess that is just the nature of sectarianism (Okay when we do it, but a dangerous extreme if they do the same or take it an extra step), but it also shows how deeply entrenched liberalism has become in the West—it shapes our perspectives.

Still, the hiccups (or hypocrisy) continues. The rights of the visible always trumping that of the fetus or foreigner.

Christianity has certainly played a role, but has tended to follow the cultural zeitgeist with adherents applying their faith on both sides of the popular argument. One could appeal to all being one in Christ or to some being excluded as the cotton pickin’ son’s of Ham. When the Bible has rules for slaves and masters, details genocidal campaigns at the command of God, and treats women as property of a man, a little confusion is to be expected. But Jesus definitely did stand up against graceless application of law and the religion that formed up in his name was a force for significant changes throughout the Roman empire. It was a shift from the might makes right of ancient civilizations—despite this still being how morality plays out in the real world.

The Church has always played a role in the abuses, from the bloodsoaked Crusades, to the brutal Inquisition and the current Zionist justification of slaughter in Gaza.

The West leads the body count in the modern world—the US following leading the West’s colonial mandate of killing a way to hegemony. This has become our biggest export. Our bombs and missionaries. Either they will convert to democratic values or die—as we replace the guy they elected with our dictator.

No, we don’t do honor killings anymore. But we will vaporize women and children if their government dared to attack a military base in response to economic sanctions. WW2 was a righteous war because it stopped the Holocaust, yet the US was allied with a guy named Joseph Stalin who was responsible for the Holodomor (3.5 to 5 million) and the purges of Christians and others who might oppose him. China, our other ally, is estimated to have killed 45-70 million, and yet Imperial Japan was an unprecedented evil for killing a hundred thousand in Nanjing?

An execution in Hiroshima

Only since 9/11 the US has directly killed nearly a million people and indirectly 4.5 to 4.7 million in addition to this. And then we wonder why refugees flood in from all around the world?

Evangeli-cons may claim an “age of grace” for themselves or their own family, but they also support the most brutal policies. If we are not directly involved in the violence, we’ll rabidly endorse those to whom all the “dirty work” is outsourced to. It’s amazing we will find the time to report an honor killing—by a person from a rival culture—and yet justify bombings and mass starvation of millions without second thought. Talk about strain on gnats and swallowing camels!

The Western world seriously needs to work on its own hypocrisy before lecturing the world (or adherents of other religions) on the immorality of their ways.  Kids in Gaza get the death penalty every day, via means we provide, and yet we say it is justified—let the civilization that is without sin cast the first stone!

Seeing October 7th Through the Lens of January 6th

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When dates like January 6th or October 7th become synonymous with events, it’s not just shorthand—it’s propaganda.

These dates are weaponized to anchor emotions, shape narratives, and erase inconvenient context. For MAGA supporters, understanding January 6th’s framing offers a lens to see through the manipulation surrounding October 7th.

What you see in this picture depends on whose branding and narrative you accept.

Both events, though different in scale, follow a similar playbook: start the story at a moment of crisis to paint one side as the ultimate victim and the other as irredeemable villains, sidelining the deeper grievances that led to the outburst.

January 6th: A Reaction, Not an Insurrection

The MAGA movement views January 6, 2021, not as an “insurrection” but as a response to perceived electoral theft. Years of distrust in institutions—fueled by media bias, dismissive labels like “deplorables,” and a sense of being marginalized—reached a boiling point after the 2020 election.

Supporters saw anomalies: Biden’s 81.3 million votes outpacing Obama’s 69.5 million (2008) despite a lackluster campaign; late-night vote “dumps” in states like Michigan (e.g., a 3:50 AM update with 54,497 votes for Biden vs. 4,718 for Trump); bellwether counties favoring Trump yet not predicting the outcome; and reports of poll watchers being denied access in key locations like Philadelphia and Detroit’s TCF Center.

Beware of accusations like “threat to our democracy” coming from elites and government officials.  More often than not this is just a propaganda technique.  Representatives aren’t the ‘demos’ and sometimes don’t represent the true vote, will or interests of the people.

For example, in Philadelphia, observers were kept 20–100 feet from counting tables, citing COVID-19 protocols, raising suspicions of unmonitored ballot handling. Stories of unsecured voting machines and trucks allegedly delivering ballots further stoked fears of fraud, especially given mail-in ballots’ known vulnerabilities (e.g., 43% of 2020 ballots were mail-in, per Pew Research, with historical cases of fraud like New York’s 1948 scandal).

Whether these concerns held up in court (over 60 lawsuits were dismissed for lack of evidence) is beside the point—what matters is the reality of widespread distrust. MAGA supporters felt their votes were at risk, and “Stop the Steal” was a peaceful rally that spiraled when a massive crowd moved to the Capitol. Some, like a Hill staffer I met, called it terrifying, advocating lethal force to stop it. But this ignores 2020’s context: months of “mostly peaceful” protests with burning buildings and broken glass were tolerated, even celebrated, by liberal elites.

All summer long—never called an insurrection.

Why was January 6 different?

Because the crowd—rust-belt workers, veterans, and ordinary Americans—challenged the establishment, not the usual activist class. The “insurrection” label was swiftly applied, despite no police officers dying that day (Officer Sicknick died January 7 from strokes, not direct injuries, per the D.C. Medical Examiner). The only immediate casualty was Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran shot by Capitol Police while trespassing. Yet, the FBI hunted participants with unprecedented zeal, suggesting a need to brand the event as a threat to democracy. Questions linger: Were agitators like Ray Epps, seen inciting the crowd but lightly investigated, planted to escalate chaos? The lack of transparency fuels suspicion.

Remember this image of Capital Meemaw, supposedly an example of ‘white privilege’ as an alleged participant in the Capital Riot?  Turns out she wasn’t even there, she was in Kansas.

October 7th: A Culmination, Not a Random Attack

Similarly, October 7, 2023, was not an unprovoked act of “terrorism” but a desperate escalation after decades of Palestinian grievances. Since Israel’s 2007 blockade of Gaza, 2.3 million Palestinians have lived in what critics call an open-air prison. The IDF’s practice of administrative detention—holding Palestinians without trial, sometimes indefinitely—denies basic rights.

From 1948’s Nakba to ongoing settlement expansion, Palestinians face systemic displacement, with Gaza’s conditions (e.g., 50% unemployment, per UN data) fueling unrest. Hamas’s stated goal on October 7 was to capture hostages for prisoner swaps, a tactic rooted in this context, not mindless savagery.

Yet, the Zionist narrative, amplified by Western media, starts the clock at October 7, framing it as an attack on innocent Israelis. Embellished claims—like debunked reports of “beheaded babies” (retracted by outlets like CNN)—flooded headlines to evoke horror and justify Israel’s response, which killed over 40,000 Palestinians by mid-2025, per Gaza Health Ministry estimates.

Like January 6, where police allowed some protesters into the Capitol, reports suggest IDF guards were ordered to stand down or skip patrols before the attack, raising questions about foreknowledge or incompetence. Much of the October 7 death toll (1,200+) may stem from the IDF’s panicked response, with the ample evidence of these “friendly fire” incidents, per Haaretz investigations. This mirrors January 6’s selective outrage: Babbitt’s death was excused, just as Palestinian casualties are dismissed as collateral damage.

Do you see men or do you see terrorists?  These men and their children are not Hamas.  They are people stuck in a killing field.

The Propaganda Playbook

Both events reveal a shared propaganda strategy:

  • Date Branding: Naming events by dates—January 6th, October 7th—creates emotional anchors. It’s no coincidence that “9/11” or “October 7th” evoke instant reactions, stripping away context like Gaza’s blockade or 2020’s electoral distrust. This glittering generality tactic makes the date a rallying cry, as seen in how “January 6th” became synonymous with “insurrection” despite no legal convictions for insurrection among over 1,200 charged.
  • Selective Starting Points: Propagandists begin the story at the moment of crisis to paint their side as blameless. January 6 ignores years of disenfranchisement; October 7 erases decades of Palestinian oppression. This cherry-picking ensures the narrative serves power—whether the U.S. establishment or Israel’s government.
  • Accuse the Other Side: Both cases accuse the aggrieved of the very crime they protest. MAGA supporters, rallying to “save democracy,” were branded anti-democratic. Palestinians, resisting occupation, are labeled terrorists. This mirrors the projection tactic, where the powerful deflect their own failures onto the powerless.
  • Amplify and Suppress: Media and political actors amplify selective details (e.g., Babbitt’s death downplayed, “beheaded babies” hyped) while suppressing context.  The FBI’s aggressive pursuit of January 6 participants, contrasted with leniency toward 2020 rioters, parallels Israel’s disproportionate response to Hamas versus settler violence.

Countering the Narrative

Critics might argue that January 6 was a clear attack on democracy, with 140 officers injured and $2.7 million in Capitol damage, or that October 7’s 1,200 deaths justify Israel’s retaliation.

But this misses the point: the issue isn’t the events’ severity but how they’re framed to obscure root causes. January 6’s crowd wasn’t plotting a coup; they were reacting to perceived fraud, fueled by denied access to vote counting and anomalies like Virginia’s consistent 55/45 vote splits.

October 7 wasn’t random terror but a response to Gaza’s strangulation, Palestinians tired of oppression—wanting self-determination. Both are distorted to vilify the disenfranchised and protect the powerful.

Conclusion

Dates as names aren’t neutral—they’re propaganda tools to erase history and rally emotions.

MAGA supporters see through January 6’s “insurrection” label because they know the context: a frustrated populace, denied transparency, reacting to a system they distrusted.

Apply that lens to October 7, and the parallels are stark: a people under siege, their grievances ignored, all inhabitants branded as terrorists to justify annihilation.

Question the narrative, seek primary sources (court records, UN reports, firsthand accounts), and use the ABCs of Propaganda Analysis (Ascertain, Behold, Concern, Doubt, Evaluate, Find, Guard) to uncover the truth.

The political establishment wants you to start the story on their date of choice, to dictate the terms of discussion—don’t let them.

The Moral Hypocrisy of Justifying Child Killing: Abortion, Gaza, and the Danger of Playing God

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The deliberate killing of children—whether through abortion or in conflict zones like Gaza—is often defended by opposing ideological camps using eerily similar logic.

Both sides, whether progressives celebrating abortion or conservatives excusing the civilian deaths in Gaza, rely on hiding their atrocities under a thick blanket of dehumanizing language, while using speculative reasoning to justify their positions.

I’ve walked away from online friendships over this hypocrisy: “progressive” friends who are vegetarian and biology-savvy yet loudly cheer for abortion, or those self-proclaimed Christians who shrug off thousands deaths of Palestinian kids as mere “collateral damage” and a normal part of war.

This blog dives into how both sides use the same flawed reasoning, spotlighting the Freakonomics future peace case for abortion, and argues why it’s always wrong to kill a child—no matter the excuse—and why we must stop playing God.

Dehumanizing Through Words

Words are powerful, and both groups wield them to hide the truth. Abortion advocates use terms like “fetus” or “reproductive choice” to make the act sound clinical, distancing themselves from the reality of ending a human life. I’ve seen friends who’d cry over a harmed insects dismiss a fetus as a “clump of cells,” despite knowing it’s a developing human.

Pro-abortion folks may do as the pro-genocide folks do and say that this is AI-generated.  But their denial doesn’t change the truth.

Similarly, those defending the killing of kids in Gaza call it “counter-terrorism” or frame it as a response to October 7th, glossing over decades of Zionist violence against those who are indigenous to Palestine.  This linguistic sleight-of-hand—whether medical jargon or military euphemisms—strips away the humanity of the victims, making it easier to stomach the brutality.

The Freakonomics Trap: Justifying Death with What-Ifs

The Freakonomics argument, laid out by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, is a prime example of how this reasoning works.

They claimed legalizing abortion after Roe v. Wade cut crime rates in the ‘90s by reducing “unwanted” kids who might’ve grown up to be criminals. It’s a cold, numbers-driven pitch: kill now to prevent hypothetical future problems. This mirrors the logic of those who justify dead kids in Gaza as a necessary cost to stop future terrorists.

Zionist voices have taken this to extremes, with figures like Moshe Feiglin, leader of the Zehut party, declaring, “Every child in Gaza is an enemy. We must occupy Gaza until not a single child remains there.”

Others, like US Senator Lindsey Graham, have suggested nuking Gaza, stating, “Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war that they can’t afford to lose.” Israeli leaders on i24NEWS have echoed this, calling for the extermination of everyone in Gaza, including babies, as “every child, every baby in Gaza is an enemy.” These statements reveal a chilling willingness to annihilate children based on speculative fears, just as Freakonomics justifies abortion by imagining future criminals.

They’re not sleeping.  They were targeted for elimination.

Both hinge on a false dilemma: either kill now or face catastrophic consequences later. This binary ignores alternatives, like the IRA peace process in Northern Ireland, where dialogue and systemic change brought decades of conflict to a halt without resorting to mass killing. Peacebuilding, not extermination, addressed the root causes while preserving lives.

Why Consequentialism Fails

This kind of thinking—called consequentialism—puts outcomes over principles. It assumes a kid in the womb or a warzone is a potential threat, not a person with potential. But life doesn’t work that way.

Plenty of people born into poverty or conflict grow up to do great things. The Freakonomics logic ignores that, just like the idea that a Gaza kid will inevitably become a terrorist. 

Plus, it’s unfair to punish a child for what they might do or for what adults—like their parents or community leaders—have done. A fetus isn’t responsible for its mom’s situation, just as a Palestinian kid isn’t to blame for Hamas. Killing them shifts the burden of adult failures onto the innocent.

Do we truly want to live in a Minority Report world where governments choose who lives or dies based on predictive algorithms?

The Sanctity of Life Over Playing God

Every major ethical tradition, religious or secular, values human life, especially the most vulnerable. Kids, born or unborn, embody that vulnerability.

When we justify their deaths with fancy words or stats, we’re opening a dangerous door. History shows where this leads—think Holocaust or Rwanda, where dehumanization fueled mass killing.

The Freakonomics case and Gaza justifications risk the same moral rot, treating some lives as disposable.

Our job isn’t to play God, deciding who’s worthy of life based on our fears or predictions. It’s to act with justice and protect the defenseless, not to end their lives to fix society’s problems.

Wrapping It Up

The hypocrisy of cheering abortion while mourning other forms of life, or calling yourself Christian while excusing dead kids in Gaza, reveals a shared flaw—believing their creative semantics or future self-defense reasoning can remove the stain of their sin.

The Freakonomics argument and genocidal rhetoric from figures like Feiglin and Graham both reduce children to pawns in a bigger game, ignoring their inherent dignity. It’s always wrong to kill a child—whether for an adult’s choices or a fear of what they might become.

Instead of playing God with false dilemmas, we need to follow examples of taking a third option—like the IRA peace process—and focus on real solutions: respect for a legitimate grievance over stolen land and diplomacy, in support of moms and investment in communities. 

Only by valuing every life can we build a world that’s just and safe for future generations.

Naboth’s Vineyard: A Biblical Mirror to the Injustice of Land Theft in Palestine

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A disturbing Penn State poll conducted in 2024 revealed that 83% of Israelis support ethnic cleansing, with nearly half expressing approval for the complete killing of Palestinians in Gaza.

This level of consensus is chilling, arguably surpassing the public support for such policies in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. The roots of this sentiment can be traced to the founding of Israel itself, where Zionist militias employed tactics of rape, murder, and terrorism to expel Palestinians from land they had inhabited for centuries. This violent dispossession undermines any claim to respect for property rights—a principle often championed by those who defend Israel’s actions.

The hypocrisy is particularly stark among American conservatives, who in one breath decry property taxes and champion the sanctity of life—down to the frozen embryo—yet in the next, justify the deaths of Palestinian women and children as “deserved” because 2% of Gaza’s men resisted occupation. This contradiction mirrors the selective outrage of a nation founded on the cry of “no taxation without representation,” yet which now supports a cruel occupying colonial power denying Palestinians self-determination and basic human rights.

The erasure of Palestinian identity is a key tool in this moral failure, with many Zionists claiming Palestinians “never existed” despite historical evidence to the contrary. Palestine is referenced as far back as Shakespeare’s Othello (1603): “I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip.” Early Zionist cookbooks, from the 1920s (to teach European settlers how to use local spices and oils unfamiliar to them) have “Palestine” in the title acknowledging the region’s distinct cultural heritage.

https://blog.nli.org.il/en/hoi_cooking_in_palestine/

This ongoing effort to remove inhabitants echoes a biblical story of greed and injustice:

Some time later there was an incident involving a vineyard belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite. The vineyard was in Jezreel, close to the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. Ahab said to Naboth, ‘Let me have your vineyard to use for a vegetable garden, since it is close to my palace. In exchange I will give you a better vineyard or, if you prefer, I will pay you whatever it is worth.’ But Naboth replied, ‘The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my ancestors.’ So Ahab went home, sullen and angry because Naboth the Jezreelite had said, ‘I will not give you the inheritance of my ancestors.’ He lay on his bed sulking and refused to eat. His wife Jezebel came in and asked him, ‘Why are you so sullen? Why won’t you eat?’ He answered her, ‘Because I said to Naboth the Jezreelite, “Sell me your vineyard; or if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard in its place.” But he said, “I will not give you my vineyard.”’ Jezebel his wife said, ‘Is this how you act as king over Israel? Get up and eat! Cheer up. I’ll get you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.’ So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, placed his seal on them, and sent them to the elders and nobles who lived in Naboth’s city with him. In those letters she wrote: ‘Proclaim a day of fasting and seat Naboth in a prominent place among the people. But seat two scoundrels opposite him and have them bring charges that he has cursed both God and the king. Then take him out and stone him to death.’

1 Kings 21:1-10 NIV

This evil plan succeeded, and Naboth was murdered for his land with the complicity of a manipulated mob. The parallels to modern times are striking: Palestinians are dehumanized as “wild,” “barbaric,” or “terrorists,” just as Naboth was falsely accused to justify his execution.  In the West Bank unarmed Palestinians are being driven off their land—even a US citizen was recently beaten to death by settlers.  Jezebel and Ahab eventually faced divine judgment, but not before their treachery destroyed an innocent man.  Today’s leaders, spurred by similar greed and power, rely on a complicit public—modern “useful idiots”—to enable ethnic cleansing and cultural erasure.

Suspicion surrounds the events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a devastating attack on Israel. Reports indicate that IDF guards were ordered to stand down from their normal patrols an hour before the incursion, despite Gaza being one of the most heavily surveilled regions in the world. This raises questions about whether the attack was truly a surprise. Historical parallels, like the shorting of airline stocks days before the September 11 attacks, suggest insider knowledge rather than direct orchestration. While there’s no concrete evidence that intelligence agencies planned the October 7 attack, circumstantial factors—such as the “dancing Israelis” linked to Mossad during 9/11—fuel speculation that Israel’s intelligence may have known of Hamas’s plans and allowed them to proceed. Unlike conspiracy theories that overcomplicate events, the simpler explanation is that the attack was permitted to serve as a pretext for escalating military action.

This pattern of exploiting crises is not new. The 9/11 attacks, carried out primarily by Saudi nationals, were used to justify the invasion of Iraq, despite no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the plot. The invasion served special interests seeking to eliminate a regional rival, much as Israel’s current actions align with the Likud party’s long-standing goal of a “final solution” for Palestinian territories. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had covertly supported Hamas to weaken Palestinian unity, likely saw the October 7 attack as an opportunity to galvanize public support for extreme measures. By allowing Hamas’s unprecedented success, he manufactured consent for policies that would otherwise be unthinkable.

The world’s leaders rarely let a crisis go to waste. Through propaganda, they direct public anger to serve their agendas, erasing the humanity of the oppressed in the process. Just as Naboth was slandered and killed for his land, Palestinians face cultural erasure and violence, enabled by a global audience too quick to accept the narrative of their dehumanization. To learn from history, we must discern the truth and reject the lies that justify such atrocities.