Israel’s new Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had to make many bargains with the Ultra nationist Far Right religious parties to get their votes. Israel has a parliamentary system which means the people don’t vote directly for the prime minister but the majority of the Knesset members do. The majority of the people don’t like Netanyahu and he has legal problems with bribery. With all of that baggage, Netanyahu had to make bargains with parties that have been kept on the fringes of the Knesset. The leaders of some have or had their own legal problems.

            These parties believe Palestinians have no right to any of the land the Palestinians are on or any of the land Israel currently sits on. The goals of these parties are kill or push all the Palestinians out of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. They hope to do this by creating incidents causing a military response to ultimately eliminate them.

            Their plan has already started by provoking a response after they stated they were going to kick a few thousand West Bank Palestinians out of their homes and off their land. This is the same land Israel had stated in many legal documents is to be Palestinian. The plan will cause an escalation of incidents until another major military response causes a war with Hamas and some Arab countries.

            These Ultra nationalists are trying to con Americans into funding their destructive activities. Don’t do it! 

            Former Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lost his position on an election because of his shenanigans in office. He used his office to enrich himself and his family. He has been indicted.

            A quote from the current Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz: “The man who worked to destroy the public’s trust in the foundations of democracy for personal reasons is not eligible for deals.”

            Netanyahu claims this is just a political witch hunt. He is trying to stay the leader of the opposition party. Does any of this sound familiar?

            Israel was portraying itself as the victim before it became a country. In fact, they kicked out the peoples who had lived there for over a millennia. Their claim involves a twisted and fictitious history wrapped in religion.

            According to Israeli archeologists Pharaoh Ramses II had an ongoing spat with the Hittites in today’s Turkey. Ramses II wanted to expand south so he needed to protect his flank. He paid a terrible bloodthirsty tribe to relocate to the area between the Red Sea – the same Tidal swamp Moses would cross generations later – and the Mediterranean. They stayed there until their leadership became concerned the people were losing their warrior culture. They had become doctors, lawyers, teachers, merchants and other professionals. They had become embedded in Egypt’s economy and culture. After getting away they split up into groups to produce and train as many warriors as they could. One soldier went with each group to train the kids.

            While protecting the Pharaoh and becoming “Egyptians” they worshipped the Pharaoh and the other gods. It was long after they crossed the Reed Sea, but before they came off the Golan Heights, when they started to adopt their current religion.

            When they came off the Heights they slaughtered the people and their animals, leaving nothing alive. After those, they expanded by more killing or threatening surrounding tribes.

            The above historical facts were in documentaries by Israeli Archeologists sponsored by their government. The small far right religious party in Israel is the power broker deciding who might be Prime Minister. Netanyahu has allowed them to build on Palestinian lands and kick families out of their homes. The latter is the cause for this war. The far right has built on land Israel designated as Palestinian. Our constitution prohibits the taking of land without due process. Netanyahu allowed it just to stay in power. No wonder the Jewish communities are split over policy.

I am not remotely anti-Semitic so my views are not coming from any sort of prejudice towards people who are of the Jewish faith. I don’t think my home county had any Jewish people when I was growing up and may not now. My junior college may or may not have had some. I didn’t care because to me, whether or not a person has a particular faith or even believes doesn’t matter to me. Since my college days I have had Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Hindu friends.

Newly elected Congresswoman Ilhan Omar made some comments concerning the American ties to Israel. She is from Michigan and the first Muslim woman elected to a national office. She is more likely to get her facts from the Arabic news media. I don’t say American because those of us who watch European and Asian network news get vastly different viewpoints and pictures. Her comments were to separate the state of Israel from the dominant religion of 75% of Israelis. The other 25% is composed of 18% Muslim, 2% Christian, and the remainder is various ancient religions.

We know Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party had only a fourth of the votes in The Knesset’s 120 seats. In a parliament the governing body must have a majority. Netanyahu has had to get his majority by using the smaller parties. Four of those are militant right wingers who hate Palestinians who lived on the land before the Jewish refugees pushed them off their family lands. The building of new apartment communities on the West Bank (East side of Israel) is highly contentious since it takes land Israel had agreed belonged to the West Bank Palestinians.

Representative Omar’s comments were the same as a very large minority of the Jewish population. Add that to the ethnic Arab population and Netanyahu’s policies must go towards the far right parties to stay in power.

Israel has tied itself to religion for many reasons but the major reason is guilt. Jewish people have lived in Palestine for centuries in peace with their Arab neighbors. They worked and fought together against the Turks in World War I. After World War II refugees from Europe, and the Soviet Union settled in Palestine conducting a guerilla war against the British and resident Arabs. When the British withdrew after giving them statehood, their Arab neighbors attacked. Zionists made it clear Israel would be a first step towards annexing Gaza, parts of Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Israel has used the world’s guilt about the camps to get financial and diplomatic support. Without that guilt and influence, we probably would have dropped them as the United Kingdom and France already have.

Omar speaks the unpleasant truth; we are unable to separate the belligerent government from the religion.