THE GROWING PHENOMENON
OF ANTI-SEMITISM

INTRODUCTION: THE RE-EMERGENCE OF ANTI-SEMITISM

On Friday, June 18th, three synagogues were bombed simultaneously in Sacramento, California: Congregation B'nai Israel, Congregation Beth Shalom, and Kenesset Israel Torah Center. National Jewish leaders called it one of the worst acts of anti-Semitism in recent American history. Fliers left at Beth Shalom and Kenesset Israel blamed the "Jewsmedia" for instigating the NATO bombing in Yugoslavia. "We are Slavs, we will never allow the International Jew World Order to take our land," said the fliers, which featured a cartoon of bombs raining down on President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

What prompted all this? Well, for one thing, many Serbs - as well as countless other Orthodox Christians in Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece (a NATO member), etc. believe that they are defending Christianity against a new Islamic onslaught DIRECTED AND FINANCED BY A NEW YORK JEWISH CABAL - a scenario which is so convoluted it defies any easy explanation, but one which, nonetheless, enjoys great popularity among the front-line fighters in Kosovo and Bosnia.

In today’s world, it seems, that anti-Semitism is not so dead after all. The fact is, it’s making an astonishing comeback. Indeed, the echo of jackboots has been swelling in the United States and Europe for several years now. Skinhead thugs invoking the name of Adolf Hitler were once dismissed as an aberration - but that’s no longer the case.

In Germany, a list of people from every walk of life - politicians, lawyers, journalists, mayors, social workers, writers, teachers, and business people - has been circulating. It’s a list of "Jew-lovers" who have been targeted by anti-Semites as enemies who need to be eliminated. In England, there have been an estimated 27,000 racist attacks associated with skinheads and other neo-fascists in a year’s time - one attack every 20 minutes. In France there has been the birth and growth of Jean-Marie LePen’s extreme right-wing National Front. In Italy Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator who first "legitimized" fascism as a political movement, is now a member of the neo-fascist party’s delegation in Italy’s Parliament.

WESTERN CULTURE BEING INUNDATED

All of these movements are feeding off white, xenophobic, "tribal extremism" fed by a panic which has been aroused by the conspicuous presence of foreign immigrants - in Europe, mainly Slavs from the east and Muslims from North Africa and the Middle East (most of whom are uninterested in assimilation into Western European societies); and in the United States, Mexicans, Haitian boat people and a flood of Asians. All this is coupled with a sense of extreme financial insecurity caused by the ravages of free trade and the fear of what the future will bring economically. And everywhere these ingredients (i.e., xenophobia and financial insecurity) are being blended with a profound hostility toward the traditional liberal elites - elites which ordinary people connect to the Jewish community and which they hold responsible for pushing economic globalism and a new multiculturalism with which few whites can feel comfortable.

Fascism - with its appeal to whites to take pride once again in their European-based civilization - projects a powerful magnetism to a beleaguered white community that feels buffeted by uncontrolled immigration, by the new multicultural ethic which seems to demean the white community's Christian-based religious and cultural heritage, and by the new economic globalism which ruthlessly ships its jobs overseas to Third World countries.

Add to all this the re-emergence of conspiracism and the Illuminist Myth and one has the makings of a catastrophe. And just how widespread conspiracism - which all too often is the seedbed of right-wing ideologues and ethnic strife - has become in Europe and the United States is revealed in the numerous theories which abound in rightist circles regarding the sudden demise of communism nine years ago. Many in the right believe it’s all a big lie - a charade perpetrated by the Jews and other "Internationalists" in order to lull the West to sleep; to the right-wing, it’s all part of a dark plot engineered by a sinister Jewish cabal hidden safely away in Jerusalem and New York - a malignant and foreboding world-presence, the behind-the-scene puppet masters of all that is going on - one which is manipulating ethnic minorities within Europe and the United States to accomplish its sinister "one-world" aims.

XENOPHOBIA DIRECTED AGAINST MINORITIES

The level of xenophobia directed against minorities, especially in Europe, has already reached alarming levels, even taking the direction of "ethnic cleansing," the burning of synagogues, etc. This ugly phenomenon has now reached even into European capitals (Moscow, for instance, where the Chechens and other "ethnic mafias" - all supposedly controlled by the "Jewish International" - were expelled from Moscow; in Berlin where gypsies, blacks, and Muslims have been burned out of their apartments; and in Paris where Jews are routinely roughed up, etc.)

And it’s not just Europe. In the United States, multiculturalism is beginning to backfire in a most remarkable manner. Taking a cue out of the multiculturalist’s notebook, white university students, who have felt targeted by black, Native American and Latino "ethnic studies programs," are beginning to take a renewed interest in their own ethnicity, in their own racial and ethnic identities; all this is being coupled with a growing revulsion against being targeted constantly as the "bad guys" in the new multicultural chic. This is especially true among white male students. George Will - no liberal himself - warns that fascism is a "revenge movement;" it "flourishes as a doctrine of vengeance" - and increasingly white males are in the mood for revenge.

By letting loose the demon of "diversity," and by telling minorities to "take pride in their ethnicity" - even to the extent of demeaning whites - liberals have unwittingly released a monster which in the end may very well devour them. By legitimizing "ethnicity" and "cultural pride" as political vehicles for America’s minority communities, liberals have cleared the way for majority whites to seize upon these same vehicles in order to defend themselves from what they deem to be minority excess.

When liberals defend Khalid Muhammad’s (and ipso facto, the Nation of Islam’s) anti-Semitism, when they invite him to speak at their universities, when they do nothing to stop the manufacture of minority myths which demonize the Jews, when they allow black, Latino and Native American faculty members to freely "deconstruct" history in their classrooms in the name of "academic freedom," then what they have unwittingly done is to clear the way for fascist apologists to "reconstruct" the Holocaust as a myth perpetrated by the Jews, and to re-legitimize anti-Semitism and "white pride" in the majority community - after all, if minority blacks can use anti-Semitism to create "cultural pride" and "ethnic identity," why can’t majority whites do the same?

THE HEART OF THE PROBLEM

A situation has been created in the last decade of the twentieth century which to growing numbers of people the world over lends credence to the belief that an elite of power has seized control of the world and is bending mankind to its will. All this supplies credibility to the belief system of the worldwide Christian community that antichrist is close at hand. This is what the Serbs believe; this is what right-wingers in Berlin, Moscow, Paris, etc. believe; this is what militia members in the United States believe - AND THIS IS WHAT COUNTLESS NUMBERS OF ORDINARY CHRISTIANS - BOTH CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT - IN THIS COUNTRY AND IN EUROPE BELIEVE. Their theology (eschatology) says so; and not only that, their experience as well - after all, what are ordinary people to think when their wishes concerning unrestricted immigration into this country (and Europe) go unheeded when all the polls indicate clearly that most people in Europe and America are dead set against it? And what about the way their jobs are shipped overseas in the interests of "economic globalization?" And what about the way bi-lingualism, busing, affirmative action, quotas, women in the military, homosexuality, etc. are pushed on them. To ordinary people, it seems self-evident that it all is a part of a dark plot engineered by an "antichrist cabal" that wishes them ill.

RIDICULE IS A POOR SOLUTION

Naturally, multiculturalists, the "diversity crowd," and the mainline media scoff at such things. There's no hidden cabal! Such thinking is the province of "rednecks," "blue-collar workers," and the uneducated. As a result, the main weapon they employ against the right is ridicule - and in doing so, all they accomplish is to ratchet up the right's hatred of them all the more.

No one easily tolerates ridicule. When people make a fool of their enemy, all they accomplish is to set their enemy's loathing for them that much more in concrete. Moreover, what if they are right? What if there really does exist an "elite of power" which holds ordinary people in contempt and runs roughshod over them?

Many very well-educated people believe that such is the case - and not all of them are right-wing Christians. This is what "lefties" like Michael Parenti of Yale and Noam Chomsky of MIT think. This is what the late C. Wright Mills of Columbia believed - and many more besides! And this is what more and more ordinary people think.

Assume, then, that there is such an "elite of power." Who would compose this elite? Certainly no one close by. Certainly not one's friends and associates. Certainly not the church - and if not the church, then certainly not the leadership of the church. And if not the leadership of the church, then certainly not those with whom the leadership associates!

THE REAL CULPRIT

And that's where the Jews come in. No one's left except the Jews!

However, there are other elites beyond the Jewish elite - elites far more powerful and far more omnipotent; but the problem with these other elites is to accuse them is to accuse one's self. Why? - because it's these elites that the church has crawled into bed with - "Big Business," "Big Oil," etc. For example, take the alliance between "Establishment Christianity" on the one hand, and "Big Business" / "Big Oil" on the other hand: it is a long-standing one, the history of which is very sordid and disgraceful. One has only to look a little beneath the surface of this alliance before one blanches in shame and embarrassment - for example, the history of the relationship between Rockefeller (Standard Oil) and the Wycliffe Bible Translators; and Union Oil and R.A. Torry's Church of the Open Door and the Bible Institute of Los Angeles BIOLA), etc.

Nonetheless, there are very real reasons inherent in the "world-views" of both communities (i.e., "Establishment Christianity" and "Big Business" / "Big Oil") that have brought them together - a certain symmetry, a kind of proportion or equilibrium between the two communities in which the strength of the one compliments the weakness of the other, and visa versa, specifically: the churches provide the "foot soldiers" and voters the business community sorely lacks in its war for "Free Trade" (i.e., "globalism") and against trade-unionism and the other economic nostrums of the left; and Big Business provides the money that the churches often find in short supply.

Indeed, it's not too much to say that without the Christian Right, the Republican Party (the political bastion of "Big Business" and "Big Oil") wouldn't have any members at all other than the country club patricians of the so-called "eastern establishment." As a result, the business community is willing to go a long way in order to maintain this alliance - probably a lot further to the right than most people are willing to admit as the recent revelations concerning Trent Lott and Bob Barr indicate (i.e., the recent revelations that both men have close ties with racist, right-wing groups in Georgia and Louisana). So long as this alliance holds, the Jewish community will be in danger of a resurgence of anti-Semitism - especially in view of the continued rightward drift of the electorate.

Given this condition of things -- i.e., the fact that the leadership of the church is "in bed" with the very "power elite" which has made the lives of so many ordinary people miserable [which fact makes it impossible for the Christian leadership to sanction an attack on the business elite if only because in accusing them, they will be accusing themselves)] -- the role of the villain falls to the Jews by default.

BUT WHO'S DOING THE MANIPULATING?

The Serbs who bombed the synagogues in Sacramento, California think it's the Jews. Orthodox Christianity thinks so too; so do the militias here in this country, and not only the militias, but - if we are really honest about the situation - countless numbers of ordinary evangelical Christians as well. [Please see our material on Pat Robertson and the Jews.]

Take the Serbs, for instance (if only because it appears that they are the people behind the bombings in Sacramento): as they stated in the pamphlets they left behind at Beth Shalom and at the Kenesset Torah Center, the Serbs think that there exists a New York / Jerusalem axis which has seized control of the United States, and that - using the United States as a springboard - is now moving to seize control of the world. This is what they see being played out in the Balkans. The fact that this "axis of power" has allied itself with the Muslims doesn't seem to matter to them.

But who's really behind the Serb's misery? - the Jews? Hardly! As we indicated in "Kosovo and America: What's Really Going On?" - it's Big Oil, specifically those oil companies invested in Middle Eastern oil -

"... and not just Middle Eastern oil, (where American and British multinationals (Exxon, Shell, Mobil, etc.) have billions and billions of dollars invested), but also Caspian Sea oil (where the same multinationals are preparing to spend billions more in pipelines which they plan to build across Turkey and / or in countries close to Turkey - and all this to say nothing of the additional billions these same multinationals are spending in drilling rights and pumping operations in Azerbaijan, a country contiguous to Turkey which is populated by "Turkik Muslims." The multinationals could very well see all these billions go up in smoke if Turkey were destabilized as a result of being drawn into the conflict in the Balkans; hence America's "tilt" towards the Muslims and Turkey - a "tilt" which, again, necessarily demands that the elite "play down" the religious aspect of the war while at the same time "demonizing" the Serbs (i.e., the Orthodox Christians)."

Some people, of course, will argue that Big Oil's interests should be our interests as well - after all, we - as "regular Joes" and "average citizens" - need that oil too. How would we function without it? This is the "rap" that Big Oil likes to lay on us all: "their interests are our interests." Yet that's not really true at all! So what if Shell, BP, Exxon, Standard Oil, Mobil, CalTex, ARAMCO, etc. are cut out of the equation? So what? The Arabs would still have to sell their oil somewhere - and Western Europe, the United States and Japan are just about the only places Middle Eastern oil can be sold.

But wouldn't the Arabs increase prices to exorbitant levels the way they did in 1973 and again during the Carter Administration? Well, they've tried in the past - no doubt about that! But the fact of the matter is, those attempts failed, and they failed not because the United States threatened them militarily, but simply because those artificially high oil prices couldn't be sustained. High oil prices had been geared to OPEC production quotas, and those quotas couldn't be enforced. And they couldn't be maintained because - as time wore on - certain OPEC nations (specifically, Kuwait and Iran) embarked on a "beggar-thy-neighbor" policy by circumventing OPEC's production quotas by selling oil on the "spot" (or open) market in an effort to increase their individual "take" by increasing the amount of oil they sold. Soon, all the OPEC nations were selling on the spot market. Greed had set in and the oil producing nations fell into fighting among themselves: Iran felt that Saudi Arabia's production quota was too high; Iraq felt that Iran's was too high. Quatar, Kuwait and Nigeria felt that they were being cheated - and as each took to selling more and more of its oil on the spot market, the world was flooded with oil - too much oil - which led in short order to the collapse of oil prices. And that's the problem with man: greed! The Bible says:

"... the treacherous are caught by their own greed." (Prov. 11:6)

All this to say, that No! - oil prices, over the long run, wouldn't rise appreciably (if at all) if Western oil companies in the Middle East were nationalized; it's not the oil companies that are keeping prices down; it's naked greed (what capitalists call "competition") that's responsible; whether or not the Western oil companies continue to control Middle Eastern oil has very little to do with the matter; the "nationalization" of the oil fields wouldn't make much difference here at all. Take Libya, for instance: Libya long ago "nationalized" its oil production - and the only people who were ever hurt by it were the oil companies. The oil itself has kept on flowing - and at cheaper prices than had been the case when the Western oil companies had controlled the Libyan fields. The consumer wasn't hurt - only Big Oil, and those who had invested in Big Oil . And that's the point! - the Western Oil companies don't really give a hoot about consumers in the West; their only real concern is the loss of income to their own shareholders.

IT'S NOT THE INTERESTS OF "AVERAGE JOES" THAT
ARE AT STAKE; IT'S THE INTERESTS OF THE ELITES

Be clear here, it's not the consumers that are at the forefront of national (and Western) concern in the Middle East - it's the shareholders (i.e., the elites) who control those oil companies that are of concern. The 1991 Gulf War wasn't fought to protect Western consumers, it was fought to protect the pecuniary interests of the Western elites who control those oil companies. That's whose interests were at stake in the Gulf War, not your interests or mine. Whether Iraq seized control of Kuwait (or even Saudi Arabia) or not wouldn't have made any difference at all insofar as the flow of oil to the West was concerned. But it would have made a lot of difference to the elite shareholders of Standard Oil, Shell, BP, CalTex, Mobil, etc.

Someone might say, what about the Soviet Union? Wasn't the war fought to save the oil of the Middle East from falling into the hands of "Atheistic Communism?" But by the time the war was fought, there really wasn't a Soviet Union left (a very inconvenient fact for the Western elites who had been so used to utilizing the "War on Communism" as an opportune mask for pursuing their own selfish commercial interests).

Others might say, what about Saddam Hussein? Well, what about him? Does one really think there's much of a difference between the way things are run in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as opposed to Iraq? The fact is, if there is any difference at all, that difference favors Iraq more than it does Kuwait or Saudi Arabia - especially insofar as Christians are concerned. The fact is, Iraq has easily tolerated the presence of Christians for years and years, but not so Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. There are countless numbers of independent Christian churches in Iraq, but it's a crime to be a Christian in both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia - and so much so that U.S. military authorities prevented the public exercise of Christianity even among their own troops during the Gulf War (although, in some units, this dictum was honored more in the breach than in the keeping).

Where is there any "Christian interest" in maintaining the royal families of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, then? There is none! - although one wouldn't have thought so as Tim LaHaye, Pat Robertson, James Kennedy, Lou Sheldon, etc. bent over backwards to support U.S. policy there. But whose interests were these "establishment Christians" serving in doing so? - certainly not the Gospel's interests. Than whose? - well, it's not that hard to figure out - it was the interests of their elite allies in the Republican Party. The question that begs to be answered here is, What won't "Establishment Christianity's" leaders do for the sake of a buck? Not much, that's for sure!

But what about the way Saddam Hussein treats his own people? What about the way he gassed the Kurdish people living there? Well, what about it? If one is going to ask that question about Hussein, one should ask the same question about the reprehensible and even villainous way the Shah treated ordinary people in Iran up until he was finally (and justifiably) overthrown by the Islamic fundamentalists (the Shah was treated like some sort of international eminence by the elites in the West while all the while his secret police was killing average Iranians on a scale commensurate with that of Stalin in the old Soviet Union); and what about the way the Turks treat the Kurds in Turkey (Turkey is an important strategic ally of the United States); or the way the royal houses in both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia treat the Palestinians and other minorities in their countries (to say nothing of indigenous Christians)? There's no difference - except that in one case (in the case of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) the interests of the Western elites are at stake, while in the other case (Iraq), they are not.

Naturally, the State Department doesn't want its real reasons known - after all, it's pretty hard to justify sending American soldiers into battle for the sake of Mobil's, Exxon's, Shell's, BP's, and Standard Oil's "bottom line." Again, as we wrote in "Kosovo and America: What's Really Going On?":

"Other reasons have to be given: hence America's sudden 'humanitarian concerns' for the Kosovar Muslims - a concern which, strangely enough, hasn't manifested itself insofar as Africa (Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Congo, Ethiopia, etc.) is concerned where many more human beings have been killed over the past few years than have ever been killed in the former Yugoslavia - and this is to say nothing about what's been occurring in East Timor, certain parts of Indonesia, the Philippines, etc. [And one shouldn't make the mistake that just because Africans are 'black' and Asians are 'yellow' that 'race' has had anything to do with the elites' unconcern with regard to the humanitarian debacles going on in Africa and Asia; if money were involved there, the elite would be very concerned. But there is no money involved: hence the lack of concern. To the elites, it's not race that matters, it's money!

"'Race' and 'religion' are of no concern to the elites; that may be what drives the masses, but not the elites, except when 'race' and 'religion' can be used to 'tame' the masses' folly. It's precisely because of this indifference towards 'race' and 'religion' that the elites seem on occasion to be embracing the liberal left's concept of 'multiculturalism'; when one harbors no real thoughts for 'race' and 'religion', one can easily adopt a 'neutral' attitude towards them which, to those who are ignorant of the elite's ways, seems to indicate 'tolerance', but which in reality is nothing more than indifference. And it's exactly here that minorities like the Albanian Kosovars and the Bosnian Muslims are making a big mistake, thinking that there is conviction behind America's 'tilt' towards them. But there is none, and should circumstances change, the elite will shrug them off without even so much as a fond 'goodby'."

But in all of this, where is there any "Jewish manipulation?" There is none! There is, however, plenty of manipulation by the American elites, that's for sure! It used to be so easy for the American elites when Communism was around! All one had to do then was raise the specter of "atheistic communism," wave the American flag and almost anything could be justified. That's what Adolf Berle and the Council on Foreign Relations did when the populist Guatemalan reformer Jacobo Arbenz tried to kick the United Fruit Company out of Guatemala. That's what the Reagan Administration did with Danial Ortega and the Sandanistas in Nicaragua; that's what Nixon and Carter did with Allende in Chile; that's what Washington did with Goulart in Brazil - and time would fail us if we described what the U.S. did in the name of the "War on Communism" in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, the Congo, etc. But things aren't so easy anymore. It's much harder for the elites to justify these kinds of interventions - and, naturally, the truth can't be told: that American soldiers are being sent off to die for the sake of Mobil Oil's, Exxon's, Ford Motor Company's, General Electric's, DOW Chemicals', etc. "bottom line."

As a result, things are much tougher now. Other reasons have to be given, reasons much more difficult to sustain - such as the pretense of "humanitarian concern." Now this requires manipulation - MANIPULATION ON A MASSIVE SCALE. And once more, it's not the Jews that are involved, but the American elites - the same elites that are in bed with today's Religious Right. Again, take what's going on in the Middle East and in the Balkans. The Jews aren't involved there, the protestations of the Serbs notwithstanding. They are not the "hidden puppet-masters" who are pulling all the strings - it's the American elites that are the "behind-the-scene" maestros who are calling all the shots, from involving NATO to maneuvering the UN for their own purposes; specifically, those elites tied to Big Oil.

And just how are they doing that? - by orchestrating the interventions in the Balkans and the Middle East in such a way as to make those interventions appear as humanitarian interventions and not what they really are: an effort by Big Oil to use the American military to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. And, as we said in our follow-on report on Rudder-Finn Global Communicators (May 27, 1999), it is precisely here that people like James Harff come into the picture. It is the job of people like Harff and the PR firms they represent to "manage" American public opinion in the interests of the elite. Harff is president of Rudder-Finn Global Communicators, a big PR firm with offices in Manhattan and Washington D.C. Rudder-Finn is closely linked to Big Oil (we are presently doing a report on this and hope to finish it in the next month or so). Jeannie Toschi Visconti says that the first time this kind of manipulation reared its ugly head was during the Gulf War when Big Oil hired a well-known public relations firm, Hill and Knowlton, to skillfully paint Bush's intervention in Kuwait and Iraq as a "humanitarian intervention" rather than what it really was, an effort by Big Oil to protect its investments in the Middle East.

But what Hill and Knowlton did in Kuwait and the Middle East pales in comparison with what Rudder-Finn did for Big Oil in Bosnia and Kosovo. Visconti relates that in an interview James Harff, director for Rudder-Finn (Big Oil's public relations firm in the former Yugoslavia), Harff bragged about pulling the wool over the eyes of three of the largest Jewish organizations in the world insofar as what was going on there. In an interview Harff gave to French journalist Jacques Merlino, Harff gloated:

"Between August 2nd and 5th, 1992, the New York Newsday came out with a lead story on (Serbian death) camps. We jumped at the opportunity and immediately distributed it to three major Jewish organizations - the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish Congress ... The engagement of Jewish organizations on the side of the Bosnians was a superb poker play. Immediately thereafter, we were able to associate the Serbs and the Nazis in the public's mind.... It is not our job to verify information.... Our job is to accelerate the circulation of news items which are favorable to us (i.e., our side) ... We are not paid to moralize ... This (i.e., getting the three Jewish groups on board insofar as the elite message concerning the Bosnian conflict was concerned) was a 'sensitive matter', as the Croatian and Bosnian (Muslim) past was marked by real and cruel anti-Semitism. Tens of thousands of Jews perished in Croatian camps [during the Second World War and the Albanian Muslims had actually formed elite SS divisions in the service of Nazi Germany - all this while the Serbs had heroically fought alongside the Allies and protected the Jews] ... Our challenge was to reverse this attitude (i.e., this history) and we succeeded masterfully ... We outwitted three big Jewish organizations.... That was a tremendous coup. When the Jewish organizations entered the game on the side of the [Muslim] Bosnians we could promptly equate the Serbs with the Nazis in the public mind. Nobody understood what was happening in Yugoslavia ... By a single move, we were able to present a simple story of good guys and bad guys which would hereafter play itself. We won by targeting the Jewish audience. Almost immediately there was a clear change of language in the press, with the use of words with high emotional content such as ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, etc, which evoke images of Nazi Germany and the gas chambers of Auschwitz."

Now this is what manipulation is all about. And where are the Jews in all this? - for example, B'nai B'rith, the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, etc. Well, they're here, but not as the sinister, behind-the-scene manipulators, but as the dupes and the victims! It wasn't the Jews who were pulling the strings, it was Big Oil - the same people who have historically been in bed with the Religious Right. [Again, we hope to delve more deeply in this matter in upcoming issues - and it goes far beyond the relationship between Rockefeller (Standard Oil) and the Wycliffe Bible Translators; and Union Oil and R.A. Torry's Church of the Open Door and the Bible Institute of Los Angeles BIOLA).]

Now while Big Oil may be a friend of the Religious Right in this country, they are most certainly not the friend of the Jews; they are to a very large extent anti-Semitic by disposition, history and as a result of their business relationships - especially those relationships as they relate to the multinational nexus which revolves around Big Oil (i.e., Ford, General Motors, DuPont, etc.). Indeed, it wasn't just "happenstance," or the result of a moment's indiscretion which led President George Bush's Secretary of State, James Baker, a "card-carrying" member of today's corporate elite, to utter the words:

[Baker's family has extensive holdings in ARAMCO, Exxon, Texaco, and a half-dozen other petroleum trusts and partnerships - in fact Baker's oil investments are so extensive that when he was Secretary of State under President Bush, Bush had to ask his Attorney General for a secret waiver insofar as the federal conflict of interest statuates were concerned for Baker to involve himself in Middle Eastern policy.]

This is really how Big Oil and Big Business view the Jews and Israel.

The fact is, the anti-Semitism of this elite runs like a well-worn path from the blatant anti-Semitism of men like Alfred P. Sloan, who rose from president of General Motors to chairman in 1937; Graeme K. Howard, another "big-wig" at GM (a vice-president); James D. Mooney, head of GM’s European division; Irenee DuPont, John Jacob Raskob, General Robert Wood, Chairman of Sears & Roebuck, Henry and Edsel Ford, Edwin S. Webster, Thomas Harrington McKittrick, Winthrop Aldrich, John Rockefeller, Walter C. Teagle, William S. Farish, the Dulles brothers (both John, Secretary of State under Eisenhower, and Allen, CIA Chief under Eisenhower) to the more subtle and circumscribed anti-Semitism of men like George Schultz, former president of the Bechtel Corporation and Secretary of State under Reagan.

Almost thirty-five years ago Professor Daniel Bell, writing for the Columbia University Forum (Fall, 1962), noted that -

"... in no other ... (free enterprise system) but the American - not in England, not in Germany (since the end of the war), not in France - has the drive [to embrace right-wing ideologies (and ipso facto, anti-Semitism)] been so compulsive ... The efforts of a number of corporations, led by General Electric, to go ‘directly’ into politics by sending out vast amounts of propaganda to their employees and to the public ... (and) by encouraging right-to-work referendums in the states - indicate the mood ... (in these) corporations ..."

Bell also noted with some interest the business community’s focus on and fascination with the Religious Right as an ally, and their disposition to enlist members of the Christian community as "foot soldiers" and "grunts" in their war against trade-unionism - an effort which he (just as we do) - believed essentially involved two strategies: (1) waving the "bloody shirt" of "atheistic socialism," and (2) contributing large sums of money to their churches and ministries.

Bell wrote,

"... a significant number of (these) corporations have been contributing financially to the seminars of ... (Religious) Right evangelists. The National Education Program at Harding College (a small, fundamentalist Christian school) in Arkansas, which prepares films on communism and materials on free enterprise, has been used extensively by General Electric, U.S. Steel, Olin Mathieson Chemical, Monsanto Chemical, Swift & Co., and others. Boeing Aviation and the Richfield Oil Co. have also sponsored many anticommunism seminars on the West Coast."

And always - as "part and parcel" of this strategy - there was (and is) an element of anti-Semitism. Take the relationship between Henry Ford and the Rev. Gerald L. K. Smith, a notorious anti-Semite and the darling of Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors as well as James Gray of the Moody Bible Institute and R.A. Torrey of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. Ford and Smith were close friends and allies, and according to Smith, Ford's anti-Semitism was no anomaly! His views regarding the Jewish community, rather than being an aberration, were representative of countless others in the business community. Smith writes:

"At the apex of his business career, Henry Ford, the industrial genius, sensed that a terrific effort was being made to take his business from him and manipulate it into the hands of the money-changers. Mr. Ford had the impression that these manipulators were being engineered by powerful Jewish financiers."

Smith continues,

"He (Ford) called to his office the most intelligent research men within his acquaintance. He commissioned them to make a thorough study of the international Jew, and publish their findings in The Dearborn Independent, which at that time was the official organ of the Ford Motor Company. No expense was spared, and it is estimated that literally millions of dollars were spent by Mr. Ford on this project. The original articles were carried first in The Dearborn Independent, and then published in book form."

Smith goes on,

"I have in my possession every copy of The Dearborn Independent. This complete set is beautifully bound in Morocco leather and was given to me by an inner-circle member of Mr. Ford’s personal staff.

"When the report of The International Jew was originally published it opened each chapter with a text taken from The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, or from the published statements of world prominent Jews. The moment the manuscripts dealing with the Jewish problem reached the public, a terrific howl went up from official Jewry. If I were to summarize the campaign of reprisal and abuse which was carried on against Mr. Ford and his Company, this summary alone would require a book. Every instrument of torture and abuse which could be imagined was carried on against Mr. Ford - smear, character assassination, ridicule, physical threat, boycott. The pressure was constant, consistent and endless. The most powerful and enigmatic pressures imaginable were brought to bear on Mr. Ford to stop the publication of The International Jew. Finally the order came through to cease publication and to destroy the copies which were available. Jews and others went into the bookstores and bought and destroyed all copies which could be found. Sneak thieves were commissioned to visit libraries and steal the report out of the libraries. This made the book so rare and unfindable that it became a collector’s item.

"The day finally came when the one ambition of the Jews was fulfilled. Mr. Ford apologized for publishing The International Jew and blamed subordinates for the deed."

FORD’S "APOLOGY" TO THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

The subject of Ford’s apology to the Jewish community is controversial - even today. But clearly, it had been made under duress and for "public relations" reasons only - and this fact is attested to by Ford’s son Edsel, who early on established and maintained close links with the Nazi government at the behest of his father, Henry. To his dying day, the elder Ford continued to believe in the central thrust of the Protocols and kept up his support of right-wing causes - hardly the actions of a man who had "repented" of his anti-Semitism.

Smith continues,

"In 1940 I interviewed Mr. Ford on numerous occasions. In fact, on the day before his first automobile was put under glass he and Mrs. Ford invited Mrs. Smith and myself to be their guests at Dearborn. On this occasion he told me the whole story of his first car and how he happened to make it. Among the precious souvenirs which have come to Mrs. Smith and myself is a New Testament autographed by Mr. Ford, and handwritten letters from Mrs. Ford commenting favorably on some of my speeches and expressing in her own handwriting Mr. Ford’s appreciation for my activities.

"It was on the occasion of one of these personal visits with Mr. Ford that he gave me a sensational and shocking report. He said, ‘Mr. Smith, my apology for publishing The International Jew was given great publicity, but I did not sign that apology. It was signed by Harry Bennett’ ...

"When Mr. Ford told me that he had not signed the apology, it seemed almost unbelievable. In fact, I could scarcely believe my own ears. Furthermore, on the occasion of this same visit, Mr. Ford said, ‘Mr. Smith, I hope to republish The International Jew again some time’. He showed no signs of regret for having published it in the beginning."

Smith goes on,

"... The press quoted Mr. Ford as apologizing for the publication of The International Jew. (But) Mr. Ford told me in the presence of Mrs. Ford, Mrs. Smith and Mr. Earnest Liebold (his secretary for 34 years) that he hoped to republish it and that he did not sign the apology ...

According to Smith, Ford said,

"There had been observed in this country certain streams of influence which were causing a marked deterioration in our literature, amusements, and social conduct; business was departing from its old-time substantial soundness; a general letting-down of standards were felt everywhere. It was not the robust coarseness of the white man, the rude indelicacy, say, of Shakespeare’s characters, but a nasty Orientalism which has insidiously affected every channel of expression - and to such an extent that it was time to challenge it. The fact that these influences are all traceable to one racial source is a fact to be reckoned with ... Our work does not pretend to say the last word on the Jew in America. It says only the word which describes his present impress on this country. When that impress is changed, the report can be changed ... Our opposition is only to ideas, false ideas, which are sapping the moral stamina of the people. These ideas proceed from easily identified sources, they are promulgated by easily discoverable methods and they are controlled by mere exposure."

So well did the business community fan the flames of this kind of thinking that by the early thirties it had pretty well saturated the thinking of most blue-collar Catholics and evangelical Protestants and had seized the imaginations of Catholics like Father Charles E. Coughlin of Royal Oak - the most popular "radio preacher" of that era, and arguably, in terms of percent of listener audience, the most popular "radio preacher" of all time - Father Edward Lodge Curran, President of the International Catholic Truth Society, Father Peter Baptiste Duffee, pastor of the St. Francis of Assisi Church in New York, as well as many of the Paulist Fathers of that and other cities, etc.; and Protestants like James M. Gray of Moody Bible Institute, R.A. Torrey of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, Rev. Gerald B. Winrod of Defenders of the Christian Faith, Arno Gaebelein of Our Hope in New York, etc.

After the war and the revelation of the Death Camps, the Christian community and big business did everything it could to cover their tracks. Today, one can hardly find any reference at all in Catholic circles and publications to Father Coughlin; it’s almost as if he had never existed - yet he was the most popular radio personality - Christian or otherwise - of his era, at least as popular in his time as Russ Limbaugh is today. And what about the evangelicals? - they’ve managed to expunge their community’s intimate relationship with such famous anti-Semites as Gerald Winrod and Gerald L.K. Smith every bit as thoroughly as the Catholics did with Coughlin. Today there is nothing at Moody Bible Institute and the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (BIOLA) which would give away the close connection that both these men enjoyed with these and a myriad of other Christian schools during the 1930s and early '40s.

And what about the business community? In Europe, representatives from Ford, General Motors, Standard Oil, etc. were to be found scurrying all over the continent after the war gathering up and destroying incriminating evidence, buying silence, and rewriting history. Those investigators who arrived in Europe from the United States charged with uncovering this evidence, quickly found themselves blocked at every turn. Take the example of James Stewart Martin from the Department of Justice’s investigative team. Historian Charles Higham writes that the young, very sharp lawyer arrived in Europe from Washington and came immediately to his office at the U.S. Military Command at Bushy Park, London, only to find that the pro-fascist, Graeme K. Howard of General Motors had been placed in charge of the overall investigation - which was akin to placing the fox in charge of the hen house. Martin protested, but nothing was done.

As a result, Martin and his team were hampered everywhere they went. Years later, Martin wrote in his book, All Honorable Men:

"We had not been stopped in Germany by German business. The forces that stopped us had operated from the United States but had not operated in the open. We were not stopped by a law of Congress, by an Executive Order of the President, or even by a change of policy approved by the President ... In short, whatever it was that had stopped us was not ‘the Government’. But it clearly had command of the channels through which the government normally operates."

Raymond Daniell of the New York Times noted the same thing; he wrote on September 20, 1945 that the "flouting" of efforts to get to the bottom of big business’s collaboration with Germany was "particularly flagrant." On November 16, 1945 Daniell again reported to the Times from Germany that those who had come to Europe to ferret out the truth behind the rumors of big business’s collaboration with the Nazis had all been relegated to obscure roles "compiling reports and making recommendations that other departments can use or ignore as they choose. Many of them feel that their usefulness here has been ended." In October 1946, Senator Kilgore arrived in Germany to try to find out what was going on. General Electric, which had supported Hitler before the war, quickly dispatched Philip D. Reed to head Kilgore off and frustrate his investigation. Reed succeeded.

Commenting on the effort by American business interests to cover their tracks, George Meader, counsel for Senator Kilgore’s investigative committee, said that

"... if the Germans had ever invaded this country (i.e., America) and conquered us, (these men, i.e., Reed, Knudsen, Ford, Sloan, Wood, etc.) would have been the first to collaborate with the conquerors ..."

Colonel Francis P. Miller, who had been executive officer of Army Intelligence under General Lucius Clay and had formerly been with the OSS, agreed with Martin, Meader and Daniell; he charged that organized efforts by American business interests in the United States were behind the efforts to suppress the investigation. He wrote that

"Officials selected for influential ... positions in the military government (and who exercised effective control of the investigation) had business connections at home that ... influenced their outlook and acts."

By 1947 those investigators who were still trying to uncover the truth were denounced as "commies." Henry Dexter White and Lauchlin Currie were the first to be denounced; and as the McCarthy era’s great "Communist Scare" swung into high gear, the same fate was dished out to countless others. Big business brought all its forces to bear on fomenting the scare and poured untold sums of money into it - all as a means of covering their tracks. They were successful.

What should the Jewish response be? Continue ridiculing ordinary Christians for believing that their lives are being shaped by unseen forces over which they have no control? - to do so will only incur greater wrath. Moreover, as we said before, what if "ordinary people are right? What if Noam Chomsky is right? What if Michael Parenti is right? What if C. Wright Mills is right?

We propose a different course of action. We propose admitting that there does exist such an elite - and proving it in a way that ordinary Christians can relate to; and in doing so, demonstrating that it's not the Jews - it's the very people the Christian leadership has gotten itself in bed with. We believe that the evidence is so compelling, that if it could be gotten to "rank-in-file" Christians it would go along way in getting the Jewish community off the hook.

To be sure, Christian leaders the world over would fight it - there's too much at stake for them not to. There's too much money involved. Nonetheless, we believe that if we could take this case to "grass roots" Christians, we would get a fair hearing.

BECOMING "GUTSY"

This means, of course, that Jews who would support us in this effort would have to be really "gutsy" - because it means taking the war to their tormentors rather than waiting for their tormentors to bring the war to them; it means becoming proactive rather than reactive! We believe, however, that there is no other real alternative! What else can one do when one considers the spectacle of a whole group of Christian men and women - many of whom are counted among Christianity’s most learned and spiritual leaders - calling upon Christians to "take America back for Christ and the church:" leaders like Tim LaHaye, Pat Robertson, Charles Stanley, Lou Sheldon, Bennie Hinn, Oral Roberts, Jerry Falwell, James Kennedy, etc. - the list reads like a Who’s Who in American Christendom. And these men aren’t just talking spiritually, they’re talking politically as well. For example, the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition, retorting angrily to the apparent hostility of liberals and multiculturalists towards America’s older, European-based, Christian culture says:

"We (i.e., Christians) were here first. You don’t take our shared common (Christian) values and say they are biased and bigoted ... We are the keepers of what is right and what is wrong."

Oliver North, the darling of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, agrees; he says,

"This is our government. They (the secular-humanists) stole it. And we’re coming to take it back."

And it's not just Lou Sheldon and Ollie North; Bob Jones, one of the so-called "Kansas City Prophets," says -

"As we see the day approaching there’s going to be a cleansing ... there’s going to be a purging ... coming forth ... and everyone that’s living under the immorality cover ... will be brought down. And God’s new breed will come forth ..."

R.J. Rushdooney writes,

"In winning a nation to the gospel, the sword as well as the pen must be used."

Catholic Yves DuPont writes,

"We see the outlines of a new social and political order ... the state will no longer be separated from the church."

Kenneth Copeland says,

"This country belongs to God ... He’s the One who brought the United States of America into existence. He had a special purpose for it ... He raised it up, and it’s not going to be taken away from Him."

Gary Potter, President of Catholics for Christian Political Action, writes:

"When the Christian majority takes over this country, there will be no satanic churches, no more free distribution of pornography, no more abortion on demand, and no more talk of rights for homosexuals. After the Christian majority takes control, pluralism (i.e., multiculturalism) will be seen as immoral and evil and the state will not permit anybody the right to practice evil."

And make no mistake about it, they mean what they say - and Jews have every right to be frightened by this.

Yes, it would be a "gutsy" thing to go up against such people by taking our case directly to "grass roots" Christians - especially in a proactive rather than a reactive way. Nonetheless, we believe that the facts are there, and if presented properly, we could get a fair hearing.

Moreover, we believe that it wouldn't take much to prove our case. The evidence is all around, if one knows where to look. Take just one example. The case of the Rockefellers and the Wycliffe Bible Translators.

Written By S. R. Shearer
Antipas Ministries