Anti-Semitic loon James Wall of the Christian Century and Veterans Today (whose column is frequently linked by the PCUSA’s Israel Palestine Mission Network) has divined the political tea leaves stirred by the South Carolina Republican presidential primary and announced who the results help: the Jooooooos:
Newt Gingrich is the current holder of the Republican crown. Saturday night, NBC projected Gingrich as the winner in the South Carolina Republican primary over his closet rival, Mitt Romney.
The race for an opponent to run against incumbent President Barack Obama is down to two candidates, a former House Speaker, and a former Governor.
That will come as a surprise to Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. Anyway, after some boilerplate political analysis, Wall gets to the subject that really animates him:
The early South Carolina primary was pivotal for Gingrich and a major setback for Romney. After losing in Iowa and New Hampshire, Gingrich appeared on his way out of politics. He was a distant second in polls the week before the South Carolina voting. Republican big money was lining up behind Romney.
Money dried up for Gingrich. It certainly did not help that he is a candidate who carries some of the heaviest political baggage this country has seen in these quadrennial shifts in American political power, three wives, admitted infidelities, two divorces, and an ethics charge that led to disciplinary action during his time as House speaker.
Gingrich was not giving up. He turned for help from one of the richest men in America, Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino owner and Mr. Gingrich’s longtime friend and patron. The two men share a politically conservative ideology and a deep loyalty to Israel.
And for the Israel-fixated Wall, who thinks that the “Israel lobby” (read: Jooooooos) run America, that’s all that really matters.
He then goes on to extensively quote a New York Times article on the Gingrich-Adelson connection (this from a newspaper that has virtually no interest in, for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and any of the big money men who will be raising close to a billion dollars for his 2012 campaign, and who have been involved in scandals from Solyndra to LightSquared to BrightSource). First, there’s this:
Mr. Adelson was building his newest resort casino, the Venetian, and became embroiled in a battle with a local culinary union trying to organize his employees. The conflict soured further when Adelson helped finance a campaign in Nevada to pass legislation curtailing the ability of labor unions to automatically deduct money from members to finance political activities.
Gingrich helped Adelson’s team develop an anti-union pitch in support of the Nevada legislation. Gingrich supported the legislation and was honored with a Nevada fund raiser. Gingrich and Adelson became fortuitous pals out of this initial anti-union campaign.
Most Americans would probably consider the idea that unions can take money from members without their consent to fund political activities of which those members disapprove to be more than a little unAmerican. But that’s only a lead-in to the real story:
Their friendship extended to their common support for Israel:
“Both men have long been staunch American allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. Mr. Adelson owns a free daily newspaper in Israel [Israel Hayom] that is credited with helping Mr. Netanyahu return to power in 2009.
“In May 2010, the cover of a special section of the paper featured a full-page photograph of Mr. Gingrich in front of an American flag, with Mr. Gingrich criticizing the Obama administration for not moving more aggressively against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”
After Obama’s election, the bond that centered on Israel grew deeper. In an interview he gave in December, 2011, Gingrich declared “that Palestinians are an “invented” people — meaning they had no historical claim to have their own state and that they remain committed to destroying Israel.
Mr. Adelson endorsed Gingrich’s comments a few days later in an interview withHaaretz, an Israeli newspaper in which he declared: “Read the history of those who call themselves Palestinians, and you will hear why Gingrich said recently that the Palestinians are an invented people.”
Adelson is the money man; Gingrich the political leader. Together, once they get past Mitt Romney, they plan to confront Barack Obama in November about his failure to provide Israel 100% support.
Calling the Palestinians an “invented people” may have been a less than artful way of expressing the truth, but there’s little doubt that Gingrich is correct on the substance, which is why people like Wall have not bothered trying to refute him and instead engaged in character assassination. But of course the real point is that Wall’s weaving a classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theory: Adelson is the Jewish money man, controlling the politician who will do his bidding, and who apparently all by himself buy the politician a presidential nomination for the purpose of giving blind and total support to the Jewish state. And in Wall’s reading, it’s a good thing all that Jewish money turned up in South Carolina:
The South Carolina primary was his last chance. Fortunately for him, Adelson’s PAC money, and a majority of South Carolina Republican voters combined to hand the former Speaker a significant victory.
Leave aside the fact that virtually all observers have credited Gingrich’s debate performances over the last week before the voting for his victory. Instead, note that Mitt Romney and his supporting super PAC outspent Gingrich and his by more than 2-1. That Jewish money is magic, my friends.
Gingrich has once again proven that he is a politician who is smart, tough and attuned to the conservative political pulse, especially in a state like South Carolina, where loyalty to Israel has become a conservative Protestant White Christian biblical belief.
Voters, who once could not find Israel on a world map, have found Israel in their Bibles. This is not a group that will embrace Barack Obama’s reelection. They will go with whatever candidate the Republican Party hands them. Gingrich is, at the moment, that candidate.
Of course, no screed about the power of the Joooooos would be complete without some snide cracks about their willing stooges, the Christian Right. The fact that exit poll information indicated that voters primary concerns were about jobs, the economy, the federal debt, government spending, and defeating Barack Obama in November. If white evangelicals are involved, they must have voted the way they did because of Israel.
Israel supporters form narrow, but strategically located voter blocs, dependable, to be sure, though not yet a national majority. But Gingrich is adaptable and shifty in a political fight. His next primary comes in Florida, January 31, where two dependable voter blocs should help him repeat the South Carolina pattern, once again overlooking his past sins and embracing his devotion to Israel and political conservatism.
The two voting groups in Florida are ethnic Jewish voters who live in the southern part of the state, and conservative biblical literalist Protestant White Christians in the middle and northern sections of the state.
And here’s where it’s clear that what’s operating in Wall’s paranoid fantasy is not merely anti-Israelism, but anti-Semitism. See, those “ethnic Jewish voters” who live in South Florida, who can be counted upon to “embrace his devotion to Israel,” are overwhelmingly Democrats, and Florida has a closed primary. Even in the general election, most Jews (my guess would be 75% or more) would no more vote for Newt Gingrich than they would try to make latkes out of pig’s feet. But in Wall’s world, Jews are not overwhelmingly reliable Democratic voters, they are Mossad robots who will automatically vote for whoever the Jewish money men tell them to vote for.
This is what happens when an anti-Semite tries his hand at political analysis: it becomes all about the Jooooooos. And yes, the IMPN has already linked to it.
January 22, 2012 at 8:06 pm
Thanks David, I have been too busy this weekend to even read much over at IPMN. I think you might just get posted there but they will probably take it down.
January 22, 2012 at 8:09 pm
“That will come as a surprise to Rick Santorum and Ron Paul.” But not to anyone else.
January 23, 2012 at 3:05 pm
IPMN essentially engages in dumpster diving, finding anything that sounds anti-Israel and linking to it. The results are sometimes hair raising.
January 24, 2012 at 12:53 pm
David, this is a dishonest smear. While Jim Wall may be a little “Israel-fixated” … any Christian who has seen the impact of Israeli occupation on Palestinians would be too… if they have a conscience.
You don’t seem to have one, though, David. You are perfectly content to smear someone based on a sloppy syllogisms and weak logic. The Israel lobby is not an “antisemitic conspiracy” but an organized and powerful special interest group inside the beltway, no more a conspiracy than the NRA or AARP. Nor is criticizing the influence of Adelson and the SuperPACs, “an anti-semitic conspiracy”… there is a real problem with the influence of deep pockets on our political system, or haven’t you been paying attention? The fact that Adelson is closely aligned with a foreign leader in Netanyahu makes that influence even more trouble-some.
Whatever criticisms might be made of Wall’s political analysis, invoking “antisemitism” is baseless and actually reflects your own biases.
January 24, 2012 at 1:25 pm
David M.: James Wall consorts with, quotes, links to, and praises anti-Semites. If it smells like a pig…
As for your specifics:
1) I never said the “Israel lobby” is an “antisemitic conspiracy.” (Huh? Who does?) )That it is a powerful lobbying group inside the Beltway I would hardly deny. In Wall’s world, the “Israel lobby” and a small cabal of “neo-cons” (Jewish, natch) own Congress and essentially run American foreign policy for the sole benefit of Israel. If you don’t want to call that anti-Semitic, fine. Call it tinfoil hat lunacy. I’m good with that.
2) Nor did I say that Adelson and his Super PAC couldn’t be criticized, or that doing so is an “antisemitic conspiracy” (you seem to have some problem with reading comprehension). What I criticized was Wall’s insistence on focusing on Adelson to the exclusion of everything and everyone else that contributed to Gingrich’s South Carolina win, which he did so that he could say that it was all about Jewish money and Israel, which played no role in the primary. Is Adelson aligned with Netanyahu? Yeah. And George Soros is aligned with a staggeringly long list of left and far left politicians and organizations in the United States and around the world. What’s your point?
3) Is the “influence of deep pockets” in American politics a problem? Maybe. When the left whines as much about Soros, public labor unions, and the president’s billion-dollar war chest, I’ll take it seriously.
4) Finally, I notice you have nothing to say about the most damning item in Wall’s article: his assumption, contrary to all evidence, that “ethnic Jewish voters” in Florida will be a “dependable voting bloc” for Gingrich just because of his stance on Israel (which is virtually identical to Romeny’s, by the way). That item is based on the old canard about dual loyalties as well as counter-factual assumptions that can only be founded an a view of Jews as a group. As I said, if it smells like a pig…
January 25, 2012 at 2:06 am
David: Your comments above only prove you can’t keep your story straight:
1) Your words “And for the Israel-fixated Wall, who thinks that the “Israel lobby” (read: Jooooooos) run America,”
2) Your words: “But of course the real point is that Wall’s weaving a classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theory: Adelson is the Jewish money man, …”
3) You should take the influence of the deep pockets seriously no matter what the left thinks. Your pathetic attempt to point out an inconsistency only shows how weak-minded you are yourself.
4) Wall’s FL political analysis is only damning if you are going to condemn the entire political establishment: the much vaunted Jewish vote in Florida is a political fact. Speaking of group assumptions: believe it or not, there are Republican Jewish voters in Florida. While I don’t necessarily agree with Wall’s analysis, it is ridiculous to create a straw man like you do: “But in Wall’s world, Jews are not overwhelmingly reliable Democratic voters, they are Mossad robots who will automatically vote for whoever the Jewish money men tell them to vote for.” … this is purely your fantasy of “anti-semitism.”
Considering your sloppiness with the truth, I would guess that you are an “Evangelical Presbyterian planter” because you get get kicked out everywhere you go.
Please stop smearing Mr. Wall with false accusations.
The tinfoil hat fits you, David Fischler.
ps I don’t tolerate fake Christians: prepare to eat your tinfoil hat frequently.
January 25, 2012 at 5:48 am
OK, then. Your answers to my rejoinderss are non-sequiturs or incomprehensible, but the real point is that despite my response to your being on the substance, you came back mostly to insult me. That being the case, you can peddle your fish somewhere else.
January 25, 2012 at 1:04 pm
Just because you can’t deal with the substance of what I say…
I’ve utterly destroyed your argument and exposed your nonsense: anyone with a brain can read your column and my comments above and see that for themselves.
David, may I remind you that you are the one that has resorted to name-calling and insults first with your baseless accusations libeling Jim Wall as an “antisemite.” You brought up the tinfoil hat too: you wear it. If you can dish it out, you should learn to take it.
January 25, 2012 at 3:21 pm
Hmmm. Something seems to have gone wrong with the spam filter. Have to look after that…
January 26, 2012 at 5:56 am
Wow: I just came upon this site. Having followed Jim Wall’s weekly blog entries for a couple of years, I have become convinced that he is a Christian of whom Jesus Christ would be pleased to call a disciple. Jim’s walk of vicarious pain with the horrifically persecuted Christians (“living stone” Christians, mind you) of Palestine at the hands of the Zionist perversion of the Judaic faith and traditions is steadfast and wide-ranging.
To come across this unChristian, uneducated and rude (e.g., “loon”) rant by a Presbyterian (one of my many mentors is a Presbyterian, a professor emeritus at Fuller Theological Seminary: he would be aghast, but the state of his health will not tempt me to place on him what could only be a distressing emotional burden) is unsettling and, in the end, causes righteous anger to me. Pastor Fishchler, in a better world under God, you would be ashamed for using such tired canards as “anti-semitism” and similar tropes to denigrate Jim Wall’s principled analyses and opinions. Anyone with a modicum of earthly curiosity, research skills, reason, and empathy could (just for starters) (i) read Professor Ilan Pappe’s “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine; (ii) visit and study in depth http://www.ifamericansknew.org; and — as I have just done — (iii) purchase and read Pamela J. Olson’s “Fast Times In Palestine”…and discern that Jim Wall is in good company in seeking truth, justice and deliverance for the brave and endangered Palestinians, the rightful 20th and 21st Centuries’ inhabitants of the Holy Land. (That the Palestinians, in vast numbers, Christian and Muslim alike, are willing to accept among them the European Jews who arrogantly usurped their “land with a people” for much of the first half of the 20th Century and for the endless, traumatic decades since, is something that Pastor Fishchler is undoubtedly unable and or unwilling to accept. It is the mostly European Ashkenazi Zionists who are relentlessly and vindictively focused — one might include psychotically focused — on cleansing the Holy Land of all but Jews as Israel endlessly perpetrates state terrorism as collective punishment on an illegally occupied Palestinian population. That those [secular] Jewish Zionists are aided and abetted by the bizarre Christian Zionist heretics is sad and deserving of full condemnation–along with prayers for their enlightenment and redemption.)
Pastor Fishchler, I will go so far as to opine that, if Jesus were to face you and term you a “Hypocrite!”, you wouldn’t recognize Him and might indeed bring physical harm on Him — as happened long ago.
And, by the way, your use, at least three times, of the awful “Jooooooos” reflects really badly on your writing and character.
P.s. Adelson’s wife, just today, contributed her own $5,000,000 to Gingrich’s quest for the Republican nomination.
January 26, 2012 at 9:04 am
What’s the story: is Wall siccing his groupies on me? Hopefully some of them will be less unhinged than these two.
Mr. Stiver: Given the lack of actual argument in your comment, I’m not going to reply to it. You are, in any case, a cellar-dweller much like your hero Wall, a fan of Veterans Today, My Catbird Seat, and a host of other disgusting sites who does not hesitate to spew bile of your own. A few examples:
And my personal favorite:
The reason this is my favorite is the article to which it was a response. James Laffrey’s article was a vile blend of 9/11 Trutherism and anti-Semitism, which after stating that Muslims had nothing to do with 9/11 concludes:
You, Mr. Stiver, are a bigoted follower of bigots. Do me a favor and take your bigotry elsewhere.
January 26, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Mr. Fischler, again you can’t deal with someone’s comments so you engage in name-calling. Sorry, David: “bait and switch” and twice removed “guilt by association” doesn’t prove anything except how desperately shrill you are in attempting to smear others. I would suggest if you want to find a bigot, check a mirror: that hat fits too.
Mr. Stiver: I agree that Mr. Fischler is being “unChristian, uneducated and rude” and that “Jim Wall is in good company in seeking truth, justice.” I think Jesus himself would have to repeat the parable of the Good Samaritan to Mr. Fischler several times before he would start to see his Palestinian neighbor on the Jericho Road. Mr. Fischler’s use of the term “Joooooos” shows the provenance of his false accusations of “anti-semitism,” a term frequently used by right-wing pro-Israeli extremists. Christians definitely need to challenge the racism of Christian Zionism and be a force for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Thank you for your comments.
David, I can’t speak for Mr. Stiver, but I found your blog when it cropped up in an Internet search. Don’t want you to fall deeper into your delusions of “antisemitism” there. As long as you post your ignorance and bigotry on the Internet, you should expect to be confronted.
January 26, 2012 at 1:15 pm
It seems I have my very own Internet stalker. Every time I ban him, he changes e-mail address just so he can throw his bile around. I guess this calls for a simpler approach.
January 26, 2012 at 1:18 pm
David Fischler, there are more trolls on here than in a Grimm’s fairy tale! Good luck!
Bless you,
John
January 26, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Oh, I don’t know. Just the two. Thanks for the support.
January 26, 2012 at 11:22 pm
Wow. Some of the comments here indicate just how unhinged, irrational, and angry modern liberals have become.
Reality check: if Jim Wall isn’t an anti-semite he does a darned good impression of one. He is exceptionally biased in his characterizations of Israel and those who support Israel (his way of calling people stupid is by describing them as pro-Israel “Biblical literalists” who wouldn’t even be able to locate Israel on a map).
It might come as a shock for Mr. Wall to learn that the Palestinian leadership of Hamas and Fatah continue to deny Israel’s right to EVEN EXIST. It might also rock Mr. Wall’s world to hear that Palestinian terrorists indiscriminately lob rockets into Israel (about a dozen just this past November). Israel is not perfect, but these things are the real impediments to a 2-state solution and eventual peace.
If Mr. Wall would crack open his Bible as much as he consults his leftist talking points he might discover something that would surprise him: Jews were (are) God’s chosen people. Jews are from whence our Savior came.
Christian Century, the organization for which Mr. Wall writes, has become little more than a tool of the secular left. Christian Century, like most modern pseudo-Christian leftist organizations, is doing its best to undermine the faith it supposedly proclaims. Such organizations resemble wolves in sheep’s clothing…but their teeth are starting to show…..
January 27, 2012 at 9:21 am
Right on, Mark. One correction: Fatah has recognized Israel. What that’s worth, you be the judge, but they have gone that step farther than Hamas.
January 27, 2012 at 10:07 am
Thanks for the correction. I had thought most leaders of Fatah still wanted to extinguish Israel, so glad to heard that they may have moderated their public-consumption (at least) position.
February 1, 2012 at 1:51 pm
Dave – are you talking about in the 90s?
I’m wondering if Fatah actually recognized Israel – or only agreed to the possibility?
February 1, 2012 at 3:30 pm
They did as part of the process of getting the Oslo Accords done. That doesn’t stop lots of Palestinian Authority officials from denying that they do. The question is, when was the taqiyya–then or now?
February 1, 2012 at 4:22 pm
Speaking as a “conservative Protestant White Christian” this would be funny if it weren’t so tedious. I, too, have been “strategically located” right here in Pennsylvania, presumably by my Zionist masters, and I, too, have been brainwashed to vote against anyone who isn’t pro-Israel, though I would disagree with Mr. Wall that we are “not yet a national majority.”
But I am glad that Mr. Wall and his sycophants are so eager to make fools of themselves and discredit their own cause.
Greg Scandlen
Waynesboro, PA
February 2, 2012 at 2:18 pm
Never underestimate the capacity of the naive to be swayed by agendized pseudointellectuals (i.e., as long as Wall’s foolishness is cloaked with a grain of truth and ostentatious analysis he will continue to convice many that he is fair and truthful).