Rising Again

This Easter Season Is Marred by Ancient Animosity

By Bill Kassel

A point which I try to make clear in my historical novel, “My Brother’s Keeper,” is that Jesus was not killed by the Jews, as a people. Rather, he was condemned by a circle of corrupt religious leaders who turned him over for execution by the colluding Roman occupiers.

That leadership group, which controlled the Temple, saw Jesus’ teaching as a destabilizing challenge to Jewish law and a threat to the practice of sacrificial offerings. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, worried that Jesus’ movement contained the seeds of rebellion against imperial authority.

These are the conditions that led to Jesus’ crucifixion, as indicated by the Gospels. But throughout history this background has been either (1) ignored, (2) not fully grasped, or (3) willfully distorted. The result is ongoing animosity toward the Jewish people who did not then, and do not now, recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

It’s often been observed that history is never past. The split that occurred between Christianity and Judaism persists. It’s particularly evident during this current Easter season.

The assault on Iran conducted jointly by U.S. and Israeli forces has been accompanied by a torrent of invective against the State of Israel. It has also highlighted historic anti-Jewish sentiments. Such feelings have long been apparent on the Left, though they usually masquerade as compassion for the plight of the “oppressed” Palestinian people. The humanitarian disaster in Gaza, caused by Israel’s effort to crush Hamas barbarism, has provided ample fodder for leftist critics of Israel.

Now Progressives have embraced the totalitarian regime of the Sunni mullahs in Iran. This is the entity that has attacked Israel, both directly and through various proxy terror groups. It has imposed religious tyranny on its own people (just recently killing an estimated 45,000 trying to liberate themselves from it). And it has threatened America more or less continuously since taking 66 U.S. embassy personnel hostage back in 1979.

Predictably, none of that matters to the Left. But the most unexpected development in recent months is the startling rise in anti-Jewish sentiment on the Right. There had been broad and consistent support for Israel within Conservatism (which, as a movement, has counted numerous Jewish intellectuals among its most prolific and productive thought leaders).

That consensus has broken down. Prominent online figures like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Nick Fuentes are only the loudest and most visible rightwing critics of Israel and Jews — and probably the most restrained. Check out the video posts of humorists Mark Dice and J.P. Sears. Scan social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and especially Gab to get a taste of the venom being spilled out with increased openness.

Rightwing critics allege that Israel maneuvered the U.S. into attacking Iran. Israel had gathered extensive intelligence in preparation for their own possible attack, including indications that Iran was planning to retaliate against American assets if Israel should strike.

That intelligence also touched on the likelihood that the Iranians intended to use fissionable material recovered from last year’s attack on their nuclear facilities to build at least one nuclear bomb. Additionally, it provided timely data on when and where a planning session of top Iranian leaders was to take place.

Can this really be called Israeli maneuvering? Trump simply couldn’t ignore such a potent combination of informational tidbits. The moment had come. The stars were aligned. He had to greenlight an attack. And he did.

Rightwing critics insist they aren’t being anti-Jewish (a concern leftists don’t bother to address). Rather, Conservatives make a sort of First Amendment case that they’re simply exercising the right to question policies and actions of the Netanyahu government. They’re not denigrating the Israeli people, and certainly not all Jews.

This seems like a reasonable position. But, a criticism of Israel’s leadership is, after all, a criticism of Israel itself, since the entire nation participates, to one degree or another, in the actions decided on at the top. And some of the points raised veer awfully close to the Islamist contention that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist as the distinctly Jewish nation it is.

One claim is that today’s Israel has no connection to the Hebrew people of the Bible. The modern state, so it’s said, embodies the rabbinic Judaism that evolved after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in the year 70.

No Temple, no traditional Judaism. Hence, no Israel.

So no Jews? Who then are all those people who’ve lived as a distinctive, identifiable group wandering around the world for centuries?

Naturally, after the collapse of the Jewish revolt and the ejection of Jews from Jerusalem, the surviving rabbis had to make adjustments in religious practice. The Temple was gone. There was no more priesthood. No place for pilgrimage or animal sacrifice. All that was left were the Scriptures and the synagogues and, oh yes, traditions that had been carried on since the Exodus — and that continue right up to this day.

The manifest illogic of the discontinuity argument is breathtaking. The very facts that Jesus was a Jew and that the Church accepts Jewish Scriptures as canonical demonstrate a clear historical linkage.

On the purely political side, many Conservative commentators have pointed out that one of Trump’s strongest electoral appeals was his rejection of adventurous wars and nation-building projects. They see this action against Iran — taken, so they charge, at the behest of Bibi Netanyahu — as a reversal of his campaign promises and a betrayal of the MAGA constituency.

What they’re not willing to acknowledge is that things happen. Conditions change.

George Bush came into office wanting to be known as the “Education President.” Instead he got 9/11.

Putting aside any nonsense about whether Jews are still Jews, Israel is our greatest strategic asset in the Middle East, the one democratic foothold in a region of despotism, sectarian hostility, and Islamist radicalism.

Trump has always said he wants to see trade boom, to see international investment grow, to see all nations thrive. Israel’s participation in the Abraham Accords is breaking down the ethnic and religious barriers that have often been impediments to achieving this vision.

Beyond that — looking at the global strategic picture — crippling the mullahs throws a monkey wrench into the world-domination schemes of the Communist Chinese.

While the irony of cooperation between the world’s foremost proponent of atheism and the most aggressive champion of Islam is obvious, Iran has supplied a huge portion of China’s oil supply. It has also been seen as a key component in extending the Belt and Road initiative (the CCP’s plan for worldwide economic supremacy), throughout the Middle East.

You may be sure that Beijing has taken note of recent developments.

There are no guarantees of how the action in Iran will play out. Things could go wrong, as our experience in Iraq demonstrated. But without doubt, the accomplishments of U.S. and Israeli forces have been spectacular. Even lefty outlets like The New York Times and Al Jazeera have acknowledged the stunning successes.

Yet, as we recall the rising of Christ during this Easter season, our celebration is somewhat marred by the rising once more of that most ancient animosity: antisemitism. We’re even hearing the old canard about Jesus being killed by the Jews (see my novel for a corrective of that flawed premise).

This is so stupid and tragic. Despite our modern secularization, America’s culture is Judeo-Christian at its core. That’s a fact which leftists (striving to bring on Marxist utopia) might deny, but which should be obvious to Conservative critics of Israel.

Jewishness is part of our national character. As the late Pope John Paul II put it, Jews are “our elder brothers in faith.”

In a sense we are all Jews.

(Bill Kassel is the host of “Free Expression,” a weekly interview show produced by Good Shepherd Catholic Radio, an EWTN affiliate serving south-central Michigan. Information about his award-winning historical novel, “My Brother’s Keeper,” is available at his website: www.billkassel.com.)