|
IMPOSSIBLE
– YET IT HAPPENED!
When
I was a lad, my favorite feature of the Sunday comics was
something called “Impossible!
– Yet It Happened!” Stories of haunted ghost ships, three-headed
babies, and frogs mysteriously raining down from the heavens,
odd occurrences chronicled in the classic style of Charles Fort and breathlessly
described in lurid prose under the tantalizing headline: Impossible?
Yet It Happened! It seemed to me to be a trope for
the irrationality of the world I was beginning to enter, a
sign that the society of adults wasn’t all it was cracked
up to be: after if, if it’s impossible, then it couldn’t
have happened – right?
Wrong!
To confirm this fact, we need only look at the most significant
recent development in the Middle East, and, no, I don’t mean
the intifada, or Colin Powell’s visit, or the suicide bombings,
or any of that other stuff: I’m talking about the recent birth
of a red heifer on a farm in Israel. Why is this so important?
The answer is to be found in a fascinating piece by Rod Dreher
in National Review Online, “Red Heifer Days,”
which recounts the theological significance of this event
– and its ominous implications for the future of the region:
“Could
this little calf born last month in Israel bring about Armageddon?
The concept would have struck many people as absurd the last
time such a calf was born, in 1997, and probably makes most
readers laugh today. Big mistake: Never underestimate the
power of religious faith to shape events, especially in the
Holy Land. Especially right now.”
THE
ESCHATOLOGICAL FACTOR
It
all has to do with eschatology, a religious
conception of the Final Days of mankind, a scenario mapped
out by three of the world’s major religions in very similar
(and specific) detail. The focus is on the Temple Mount – the site of Ariel Sharon’s
provocative visit that set off the current intifada,
and also site of the First Temple of the Hebrews. Destroyed
by King
Nebuchadnezzar, and then again by the Romans, according
to Jewish traditionalists the Third Temple will be built by
the Messiah, who will be not only king of Israel but also
high priest of the rebuilt Temple. To the Muslim Palestinians,
and their co-religionists worldwide, this is the site of the
Dome of
the Rock, a Muslim shrine, the sacred al-Aqsa
mosque, and the place where Mohammed mounted a fine Arabian
horse and galloped straight up to heaven. A large number of
Christian fundamentalists have also imbued this spot with
millennialist import: according to this “dispensationalist”
view, Jesus Christ will return to earth to do battle on the
plain of Armageddon and triumph over the Antichrist only after
the building of the Third Temple. Dreher cites Gershom Gorenberg,
whose book, End
of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount,
describes the apocalyptic intersection
of religion and politics both in Israel and the US:
“What
happens at that one spot, more than anywhere else, quickens
expectations of the End in three religions. And at that spot,
the danger of provoking catastrophe is greatest.”
I
hate to tell you this, but the danger just got much greater.
Now, as for that red heifer….
OUR
NUTBALLS, AND THEIRS
The
key thing to remember, in all this mythological murk, is that
no religious Jew is allowed to set foot on the Temple Mount,
for fear of desecrating the sacred ground. In any case, the
Temple can only be reconstructed when the Messiah returns
to save his people, and, so far, no Messiah, and no Third
Temple. But not all Israelis are willing to assume such a
passive stance, tradition or no tradition. Ever since Israel
came into possession of old Jerusalem, in 1967, a fanatical
group of Israeli nationalists have tried to kick-start the
eschatological machinery, plotting the destruction of the
Muslim shrines and busily constructing the various ritual
objects for use in the rebuilt Temple. These Israeli nutballs
have forged a natural alliance with our Christian nutballs,
who have their own theological rationale for hurrying Apocalypse
along. They are dispensationalists,
who believe – among
other things – that the colonization of the Holy Land
by the children of Israel signals the second coming of Christ:
the efforts of these “Christian Zionists” account
for the uncritical support for Israel among many “born
again” Christian conservatives.
PROVOKING
ARMAGEDDON
Okay,
so now we get to the part about the red heifer: it turns out
that, although no religious Jew is allowed on the Temple Mount,
there’s a loophole – it’s okay if he or she is first purified
in the ashes of a pure red heifer. These creatures are exceedingly
rare. One was born a couple of years ago, in Israel, but it
soon began sprouting white hairs on its tail and was deemed
insufficiently pure by the rabbinical authorities. Ah, but
science found a way around the fickleness of God’s creation,
and through the modern miracle of genetic engineering – and
funding provided by “Christian Zionists” in America – a red
heifer has been bred, and pronounced pure. As Dreher points
out, the world media covered this as a joke, but in reality
the red heifer is the theological and political equivalent
of a suitcase nuke waiting to go off. Dreher cites Richard
Landes, a professor of history at Boston University and
director of the Center for Millennial Studies:
“These
kinds of circumstances are exactly what people are waiting
for. We could be starting a war. If this is a real red heifer,
and strict Orthodox rabbis have declared her worthy of sacrifice,
then a lot of Jews in Israel will take that as a sign that
a new phase of history is about to begin. The Muslims are
ready for jihad anyway, so if you have Jews up there doing
sacrifices, talk about a red flag in front of a charging bull.”
Rod
Dreher, by the way, is the only writer I know of to catch
the significance of this red heifer business, because the
media tends to not take religion seriously, and yet I can’t
help thinking that he perhaps unintentionally underscores
another overlooked reality: that the problem of fundamentalism
is not limited to the Arab world. The Islamic brand brought
down the World Trade Center, but the Judeo-Christian varieties
may succeed in starting World War III.
We
have heard much about the evils of “moral equivalence” in
the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The former, we are told,
are superstitious terrorists, whose fanatical mindset makes
the perfect receptacle for the hatching of murderous plots,
while the Israelis are Westernized democrats, ensconced, just
like us in, in a secularized consumer culture. But Dreher
points to the existence and growing influence of Jewish fundamentalists,
fanatics on the order of Al Qaeda, who could well spark an
all-out Arab-Israeli war. Citing Professor Landes, he writes:
“’It’s
entirely conceivable that this [red heifer] could trigger
a new round of attempts to blow up the Dome of the Rock.’
This is something the Israeli security forces have long been
vigilant against. But with their attentions drawn elsewhere
by the war with the Palestinians, it’s possible that a radical
group could slip the net. And it’s possible that religious
extremists elements within the Israeli army could help them.”
EVEN
IF…
As
Colin Powell shuttles back and forth between Sharon and Arafat,
I can’t help but think of that red heifer, growing fat and
glossy under the ministrations of its deluded creators. Even
if the US somehow succeeded in forging a “peace plan,” even
if President Bush actually had the guts to stand up to Sharon
and say: “Enough – or else!” Even if, somehow, the
nutball tendencies among the Palestinians could be minimized
or at least contained – even then, it seems, the cause of
peace in the Holy Land is utterly doomed. For what happens
at the end of three years, when the red heifer grows old enough
to sacrifice, and its ashes can be used for purposes of ritual
purification? At that point, the locus of religious conflict
in the world could well see yet another Israeli invasion,
this time prompted by an upsurge of religious fanaticism married
to a virulent ultra-nationalism – precisely the forces that
want to propel the Satanic Benjamin
Netanyahu and his nutball
followers into power.
HISTORY
AND IRONY
Sharon
knows full well that if he accedes to the demands of the Americans,
Netanyahu, the ultra-hardliner, is bound to succeed him. The
irony of US intervention, in brokering a “peace plan,” is
the unintended consequence of a burgeoning religious supremacism
in Israeli politics, one with the power to undo all the good
work of American diplomacy.
A
DANGEROUS HERESY
What,
then, is the solution? The widespread idea that it is the
task of American diplomacy to come up with a solution to all
or even some of the world’s most intractable problems is precisely
where US foreign policy has gone wrong since the days of the
Founders. It is a dangerous heresy promulgated by cold warriors
trained in the European tradition of realpolitik that
the earth is our chessboard, and we must always be making
or planning a move: this troublesome activism has been the
cause of much misery in the world, and much social and economic
dislocation in this country. It is responsible for the policy
of perpetual war pursued in modern times by our rulers in
Washington, and eventually it will be our undoing. For what
can Colin Powell do against the red heifer? Against this improbable
creature, the whole architecture of US policy in the Middle
East could be laid low, and that is a humbling thought – or
at least it ought to be.
INGRATITUDE,
THY NAME IS ‘ISRAEL’
You’ll
recall that the big reason for US involvement has been to
clear the decks for an all-out attack on Iraq. Hey, but wait
a minute – with all this talk of Saddam’s alleged “weapons
of mass destruction,” the image one gets is of the Iraqi ruler
raining missiles down on, say, Brooklyn. But he hasn’t got
anything even close to that kind of range: now that the Iraqis
and the Saudis have kissed and made up, his only possible
target is Israel. We are begging Sharon to please
lay off the Palestinians so we can do Israel the favor of
taking out a deadly threat to its continued existence. And
still, Sharon says no.
GO,
COLIN, GO!
Since
US
tax dollars have funded the colonization and humiliation of
a people, the Palestinians, the American secretary of
state has a moral responsibility to see that they get a break,
and a fair deal. Powell seems admirably committed to that,
and he is more than living up to the role implicitly
ascribed to him in this space as the conscience of the
Bush administration. As such, he faces a powerful and vocal
interventionist claque, reflexively pro-Sharon (actually,
pro-Netanyahu), and highly influential in the Republican party.
It’s one man against the War Party, a truly heroic struggle
on Powell’s part, and, so far, he’s proving himself to be
at least the equal of his adversaries. More power to him – as
long as he sees that the only rational long-term strategy
for the US in the Middle East is an exit strategy.
A
FUTURE SCENARIO, CIRCA 3002
Our
Israel-centric foreign policy, which has alienated the entire
Arab world, Muslim and Christian alike, must go. The
urgency of this reorientation is underscored by the Israeli
government’s intransigence. We need to extricate ourselves
from this volatile region, which seems cursed by some special
blight, and a likely target of divine anger or some
kind of retribution that can’t be long in coming. For all
the good intentions, the diplomatic phrases, the talk of “peace”
and “justice,” are as nothing when they come up against the
awful power of the red heifer.
In
this context, imagine the following scenario. It is the year
3002, and some kid is reading the Sunday funnies – yes, they
still have Sunday comics, because some traditions are
indeed sacred – and he comes across a little item that starts
like this:
“How
could a red heifer have started World War III? Impossible?
Yet it happened….”
Please
Support Antiwar.com
Antiwar.com
520 S. Murphy Avenue, #202
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
or Contribute Via
our Secure Server
Credit Card Donation Form
Your contributions
are now tax-deductible
|
