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July 25, 2006 - O'Reilly Sounds the Trumpet
World War III: Rapture-Ready?
There is no shortage of people itching for World War III. Fox News megaphones like Sean
Hannity and Bill O’Reilly - as well as members of the Outer Party, like New Gingrich - have
proclaimed, with a glint in their eye, the dawn of World War III.
As usual, ordinary Israelis, Arabs and even Americans are about to pay a steep price –
unless, of course, they belong to a fundamentalist sect, in which case they will be saved.
Indeed, America’s own President and Sloganeer-in-Chief, George W., rushed a delivery of
bombs to the region, hoping to accelerate the apocalypse. He forgot that Armageddon, if
it comes, will be on God’s clock and not his.
But George W. stands on the White House lawn nonetheless, face turned skyward, waiting
for the warm glow – waiting to be beamed up to Heaven, like in Star Trek, while the rest of
us sinners remain on earth to suffer the worst parts of the Book of Revelations.
Similar thinking is mirrored on the other side of the planet. Hezbollah’s violation of the UN’s
land-for-peace deal makes sense only within the framework of fundamentalist Islam. The
determination of Hamas to ignore UN Resolution 181, recognizing Israel’s 1948
boundaries, is also explained by religious fundamentalism. These two movements –
Hezbollah and Hamas - will accept weapons from anybody and take orders from nobody, by
the way. (Fox News keeps changing its mind, sometimes depicting these movements as
puppets of Syria and other times of Iran.) Religious fundamentalism needs no foreign
sponsors.
Israel, for its part, is a divided nation. Israel has the region’s most vibrant peace
movement. But secular, progressive and democratic Israelis are steadily losing ground to
segregationist groups: consider, for example, the new Nationality Law barring Palestinians
from living with an Israeli spouse inside Israel. Israel's Chief Justice, Aharon Barak, was
right to sound the alarm.
The United States should have spent the past few decades using the power of persuasion
to bring moderate Israelis and Palestinians to the table. Of course, it said it was doing this,
but in reality the US was undermining the peace process and even endangering the
security of Israel proper by subsidizing settler colonies, illegal under Article 49 of the
Geneva Conventions: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own
civilian population into the territory it occupies.” And now a wall (which does not follow the
legal Green Line) surrounds numerous Palestinian towns on three sides, turning them into
ghettos.
With everything out of control, American media look for easy explanations and scapegoats.
But an accurate diagnosis is grim: Mainstream Christianity, Judaism and Islam have all
been hijacked by rapture-ready religious fundamentalists. The leadership of the United
States, Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran are eager for the Final Countdown. Presiding
over end-of-the-world ceremonies will be George W., a man with the fiery determination of a
beerhall convert.
Paul Craig Roberts said it well: “The Bush administration is insane. If the American people
do not decapitate it by demanding Bush’s impeachment, the Bush administration will bring
about Armageddon. This may please some Christian evangelicals conned by Rapture
predictions, but World War III will please no one else.”
Let the trumpets blow…
Andrew Bosworth, Ph.D.
www.virtualcitizens.com
There is no shortage of people itching for World War III. Fox News megaphones like Sean
Hannity and Bill O’Reilly - as well as members of the Outer Party, like New Gingrich - have
proclaimed, with a glint in their eye, the dawn of World War III.
As usual, ordinary Israelis, Arabs and even Americans are about to pay a steep price –
unless, of course, they belong to a fundamentalist sect, in which case they will be saved.
Indeed, America’s own President and Sloganeer-in-Chief, George W., rushed a delivery of
bombs to the region, hoping to accelerate the apocalypse. He forgot that Armageddon, if
it comes, will be on God’s clock and not his.
But George W. stands on the White House lawn nonetheless, face turned skyward, waiting
for the warm glow – waiting to be beamed up to Heaven, like in Star Trek, while the rest of
us sinners remain on earth to suffer the worst parts of the Book of Revelations.
Similar thinking is mirrored on the other side of the planet. Hezbollah’s violation of the UN’s
land-for-peace deal makes sense only within the framework of fundamentalist Islam. The
determination of Hamas to ignore UN Resolution 181, recognizing Israel’s 1948
boundaries, is also explained by religious fundamentalism. These two movements –
Hezbollah and Hamas - will accept weapons from anybody and take orders from nobody, by
the way. (Fox News keeps changing its mind, sometimes depicting these movements as
puppets of Syria and other times of Iran.) Religious fundamentalism needs no foreign
sponsors.
Israel, for its part, is a divided nation. Israel has the region’s most vibrant peace
movement. But secular, progressive and democratic Israelis are steadily losing ground to
segregationist groups: consider, for example, the new Nationality Law barring Palestinians
from living with an Israeli spouse inside Israel. Israel's Chief Justice, Aharon Barak, was
right to sound the alarm.
The United States should have spent the past few decades using the power of persuasion
to bring moderate Israelis and Palestinians to the table. Of course, it said it was doing this,
but in reality the US was undermining the peace process and even endangering the
security of Israel proper by subsidizing settler colonies, illegal under Article 49 of the
Geneva Conventions: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own
civilian population into the territory it occupies.” And now a wall (which does not follow the
legal Green Line) surrounds numerous Palestinian towns on three sides, turning them into
ghettos.
With everything out of control, American media look for easy explanations and scapegoats.
But an accurate diagnosis is grim: Mainstream Christianity, Judaism and Islam have all
been hijacked by rapture-ready religious fundamentalists. The leadership of the United
States, Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran are eager for the Final Countdown. Presiding
over end-of-the-world ceremonies will be George W., a man with the fiery determination of a
beerhall convert.
Paul Craig Roberts said it well: “The Bush administration is insane. If the American people
do not decapitate it by demanding Bush’s impeachment, the Bush administration will bring
about Armageddon. This may please some Christian evangelicals conned by Rapture
predictions, but World War III will please no one else.”
Let the trumpets blow…
Andrew Bosworth, Ph.D.
www.virtualcitizens.com
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