Dear Bobby,
As you know, I have supported your bid for the presidency even before you declared last spring. I have admired and believed in you for years, and when you entered the race I felt hope for the first time in decades that your non-violent impulses, honed by your tragic family history and a deep revulsion for our country’s imperial wars and violent history, would triumph and usher in a new era of peace. Despite the naysayers who dismissed you from the start, I said Yes, that you would shock those who ridiculed and maligned you and that you would be the man to carry out President Kennedy’s American University speech and fulfill his and your father’s legacy of “not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women” because “we all breathe the same air” and “we all cherish our children’s futures” and “we are all mortal.”
I suggested that you would heal the divide and not expand it. Seeing you stumble on your way by throwing your full support to the Zionist leaders of Israel has been a body blow to me. At first I thought it might be explained by your reaction to the false antisemitic accusations that were hurled your way once word emerged that you might enter the presidential race. But as time went on it dawned on me that I was wrong and that you were in sync with the powerful Israel Lobby. So now, I feel as if we are in the tenth round of fight for your soul’s compassion. That you have not defended the children of Gaza and condemned their massacre by the thousands has shocked and sickened me.
As a scholar of religion and its intersection with politics, I have been meditating on current events.
Religion has for a very long time been used as a cover for slaughtering people and seizing their land. This is true for the United States and Israel. It is built into their theological underpinnings. So it should not be at all surprising that the current Israeli massacre of Palestinians is fully supported by the U.S. government led by President Joseph Biden and by almost every presidential aspirant. You, however, as a self-styled anti-war candidate are a great surprise to me, although I may be naïve and shouldn’t be since you gave your unequivocal support to the Israel government a month ago, following the October 7 Hamas-led incursion into Israel that killed innocent Israelis (many of whom were also probably killed by the IDF as Jonathan Cooke has reported). Despite that, I still expected your conscience would surely prompt you to condemn what can only be described as genocide, the slaughter of the innocents in Gaza that is ongoing.
You have undermined your claim to “end the forever wars” and to defend children. Why you have done (or not done) this is a question that so many of your supporters and former supporters are asking. Only you can say. Perhaps we might only know if you unequivocally condemned Israel’s actions and faced whatever might come your way as a result. This is unlikely, I now realize, but one can still hope. I think it would take a spiritual miracle of moral courage, because of your claim that your historical analysis that you say is sincere and true that Israel now and always has been the just and innocent party and the Palestinians the evil ones. I find your analysis unbelievable and your silence as innocents are being slaughtered indefensible, even as I applaud so many of your other positions, as you know. Everyone knows that running for the U.S. presidency creates strange bedfellows, but your touting of the Israeli propaganda in which you conflate the Palestinian people with Hamas to justify massacring civilians is beyond strange – it is immoral.
I know how much you respect Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and you no doubt have heard his words before.
“And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular – but one must take it simply because it is right.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
Conscience calls to you, Bobby. Be true to that voice within. Politic as it may be, there is a heavy burden of guilt for abandoning the Palestinians to slaughter by silence. King learned this when he saw those photos of the napalmed and dead Vietnamese children and was conscience-stricken to come to Riverside Church in New York to give his speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence.” You can do the same. The pictures of dead Palestinian children, victims of U.S. support for Israeli bombs, are there to see. Martin quoted your uncle, John, that “those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” He said that we can no longer worship the God of hate and retribution. He said, “Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted.”
You too, Bobby, can break your silence, step up high and let your conscience also leave you no other choice but to condemn the genocide in Gaza. As Martin said, “A time comes when silence is betrayal.”
You say you are making “a moral case for Israel” as the justified party in its seventy-five year long war with the Palestinians. In doing so you have reneged on your campaign promise to emulate President John Kennedy, who would be appalled by your silence. Your website, Kennedy 24, declares that “[you] Kennedy will revive a lost thread of American foreign policy thinking, the one championed by his uncle, John F. Kennedy who, over his 1000 days in office, had become a firm anti-imperialist.” In genuflecting to the Israel genocide while touting your connection to JFK and your father, Senator Robert Kennedy, you have in fact taken a position toward Israel diametrically opposed to theirs. One could sense this coming when under pressure this past summer, you withdrew your support for Roger Waters, a strong Palestinian supporter who was falsely accused of being anti-Jewish, and you then allowed your “friend” Rabbi Shmuley Boteach to say that Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian, killed your father in 1968 when you knew that was a lie and was part of a sophisticated intelligence conspiracy to blame the patsy who was said to hate Israel. To allow Shmuley to audaciously and heartlessly repeat a CIA trope about your father’s assassination was a telltale sign of worse to come.
For both the U.S. and Israel, the Bible has been used to cover up the crimes of their foundings. They have analogous histories rooted in religious myths. In both cases, the indigenous peoples were considered less than human – savages, infidels – or in the description of Palestinians by the current Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, “human animals.” Such racist, dehumanizing language has been repeated time and again throughout the American and Israeli narratives used to justify their crimes against those they killed and whose land they stole. The gloss of civilized hypocrisy has been unmasked by such language, just as it was when Hitler repeatedly called Jews “vermin.” Irony aside, the Nazi rhetoric of denigration and racial superiority to justify exterminating Jewish people has been repeatedly mirrored by American and Israeli leaders, whether it was against the Original Free Peoples of North America, Vietnamese, Koreans, Iraqis, etc. or the Palestinians. It is the master/slave mentality deeply rooted in U.S. and Israel history.
Bobby, you have said that you hope to be the second independent candidate to become president, the first being George Washington. Yet Washington was a racist and slave owner who supported the extermination of the Indian natives so the white settlers could take their land. He himself did so, speculating in Native lands together with most of the other prominent politicians from the early days of the Republic, including Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Andrew Jackson, et al. For the governors and legislators of the thirteen states it was also open sesame on the seizure of Indian land which required their slaughter in turn.
One can learn this in Peter P. d’Errico’s important recent book, Federal Anti-Indian Law: The Legal Entrapment of Indigenous Peoples, where he makes clear how U.S. law was used to codify such “legal” theft and killing. Such federal law was, as d’Errico writes, a claim of unlimited U.S. power and not really law at all but the suspension of law as it granted the U.S. government complete authority over Native peoples, their lives, and their land. Legal theft, in other words. Like the English justification for their claim to their colonies – the “right of discovery” proclaimed in Henry VII’s commission to John Cabot: “to subdue and take possession of any lands unoccupied by any Christian Power” – a series of three Supreme Court rulings in the 1830s by Chief Justice John Marshall were based on the claim of “Christian discovery,” which in turn was based on a papal grant from Pope Alexander the Sixth in 1493 that gave to Christopher Columbus’s sponsors, Ferdinand and Isabella, ownership of any land Columbus might discover. This divine right required the killing and subjugation of non-Christian infidels and heathens who were considered brute animals, just as the Palestinians are today.
Similar justifications have been used by Zionists for the killing of Palestinians and the seizure of their land in the name of the Biblical Jewish God and his instructions to them. This myth claims that God gave them the ancestral Palestinians’ land, therefore, like native peoples of North America who, according to the non-law U.S. Indian law, only had the right of occupancy, the Palestinians could be killed and dispossessed by the God-given rightful owners, which they were in 1948. Netanyahu has made such claims many times, as have his predecessors. He calls for a holy war of annihilation against the Palestinians, based on the Hebrew Bible. This is widely known and has a long history in the Zionist propaganda narrative that has allowed for seventy-five years of killing and the systematic shrinking of Palestinian land to its pitiful size today.
It is interesting to note that the three primary countries that intersect in the use of religious justification for colonial and imperial policies are England, the U.S., and Israel – together with the Papacy and its May 4, 1493 bull Inter Caetera issued by Pope Alexander the Sixth to declare Christian discovery. I mention this since I am an Irish-American Catholic, and it was the Irish uprising against the English colonial occupiers that has become a key inspiration for anti-colonial rebels throughout the twentieth century and beyond. I have taken inspiration from my Irish ancestors. This is your heritage also, Bobby, so it becomes even more surprising that you, even as you tout the American Revolutionary War rebel fighters against the English colonialists, would support the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians. As a lawyer, you must be aware of Federal Indian Law and how it, like all law, is rooted in a metaphysics of being human; has presuppositions that are brought to the bar, and in the case of federal Indian law, a Christian nomos at odds with that of Native peoples’.
You surely know that the Israeli assault on Gaza is a massive war crime according to international law, and even within the moderate Catholic just war theory, is, by its distorted proportionality, evil and must be rejected as immoral and a terrible sin. You claim to want to end all wars but support the ongoing slaughter of thousands upon thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, including so many children and women. Nor have you said a word against Biden’s saber rattling with aircraft carriers, U.S. drones, and assistance for Israel’s bloodthirsty assault that raises the threat of a much wider war that could turn nuclear.
Yes, the question is why such silence, which you can break now. I beg you to speak out. You are a man of conscience. MLK, Jr. speaks to us all still.
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular – but one must take it simply because it is right.
Pax tibi,
Ed
Such a beautiful letter, speaking so much truth in the spirit of compassion.
It seems the author put stock in some fantasy Kennedy lineage, and ignored his eyes and ears. Everyone who’s been honest with him/herself could see RFK, Jr. coming in on the corporate, conservative side of things, as is supporting Israel against humanity in Israel’s war on Gaza. Venal politicking. There’s no reason to hope for further unreal fantasies… come back down.
On a separate note, it’s very interesting that Hitler called Jews “vermin,” in light of Trump’s recent comment: “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” 1) Trump’s self-comparison to Hitler is notable. 2) It was the Nazis initial assault on leftists that is the most important lesson of the second world war: dictators come for the left first.
It’s a nice essay, Ed, but I fear there’s no chance of it getting through. As I said in my essay on him, for all of RFK, Jr.’s real courage in fighting for what he thinks is right about vaccines, Pharm/corporate capture of government agencies, and the folly of Ukraine (which everybody now recognizes), he is not, and has never claimed to be, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist (in a consistent sense), nor, certainly, anti-Zionist. He identifies as a lifelong, committed Democrat, who is, like many, fed up with the corporate-captured corruption of the present party apparatus. That is, he presents himself as, in the tradition of his ancestors, a good-old as opposed to bad-new Democrat—the “Spirit of the Classic Democrat.” Well, “hardcore Zionism” is an integral part of that good-old stance, as is *smart* American hegemonism and anti-socialism. (RFK, Sr. and JFK included, however, the stupid elements perceived them.) I don’t think his Zionism is opportunistic, but a deeply-held Zionist lifeboat ethic common to his generation, and to the world-view they have created and still oversee. To change his mind, if that’s possible, would require a deep, open-minded study on his part, like he did with vaccines, and he has neither the time nor inclination for that, and, most importantly, just doesn’t believe it’s worhwhile.
the shocking feature of Kennedy’s discourse, at a time when American bombs are raining down on the neighborhoods and homes of Palestinian families, is that he appears to believe in at least some of what he says. How could a man responsible for the immense achievement of his covid book believe such Orwelllian tripe.
Because some of what he says is true. Israel IS a Democracy in the sense in partly conforms to the historically corrupt sense of the term. Israelis can indeed vote for one of a number of preselected pols whose policies will be influenced by plutocratic money and media power. As occurred in apartheid South Africa or the USA, when the US was a Democracy before world war two when non-Whites were segregated and oppressed. And Kennedy believes in Democracy because of and despite his family history.
You are an argument, Edward Curtin–as was Martin Luther King–for the inclusion of religion in geopolitical power relations. But for religion that is formulated from the perspective of the people, the common folk, not as has been conventional historically, from the perspective of power. Historically religion has been the worship of spiritual power inculcated by power systems to justify ruling power. But the people can modify existing religions to develop a folk perspective that serves their spiritual geopolitical interests in the way that ruling power has perverted religion to serve theirs.
As an obvious example, the solution to the current oppression of the Palestinian people by Zionists has been a proposal of a secular state. I suggest as an alternative a spiritual state which combines elements of both Islam and Judaism. But this must be evolved by the people given that the Abrahamic religions have emphasized the spiritual rule of a homicidal God. But there are decent people like yourself in all religions even if not as talented, so the historical evolution of folk religions is merely a matter of geopolitical intention, although there is nothing mere about it.
I found your letter and can’t even figure out where to begin to comment.
“As a scholar of religion and its intersection with politics, I have been meditating on current events.
Religion has for a very long time been used as a cover for slaughtering people and seizing their land.”
Nowhere do you mention the past and modern history of Islam, which is a religion that is certainly involved in the Middle East conflict. There are Muslims living inside Israel freely practicing their religion. There were large Christian and Jewish communities in Muslim majority countries around the Middle East that have only a handful left or none at all.
The whole point of Islam was to conquer and subjugate the “infadels”, all the way from it’s creation! There are dark haired and skinned Italians in Southern Italy because of Muslim conquest from North Africa for example. The word ” slave” came from “slav” because there were so many Muslim slaves of European origin when the areas were conquered. Your history lacks context!
The Old Testament says homosexuality, etc., is an abomination and the offenders should be killed. Of course not practiced by Christians or Jews. The Koran SAYS IT AND MEANS IT! It is amusing to see gays, LGBT or transexuals for Palestine! If you are found out in Palestine, YOU ARE THROWN OFF A BUILDING or DRAGGED BEHIND A VEHICLE!
I wrote an essay detailing how the Palestinians are victims but not from who you think:
https://wholeamericancatalog.substack.com/p/yes-the-palestinians-are-victims
They had FIVE chances at a state and their leaders passed on all of them!
We hear the mantra,
If Israel would just allow the Palestinians to have their own state, there would be peace in the Middle East.”
“Courtesy THE WESTERN JOURNAL Op-Ed by Dennis Prager:
Rejection No. 1: In 1937, the British Peel Commission offered the Arabs 80 percent of the geographical area known as Palestine. The Jews were offered 20 percent. The Arabs rejected it.
Rejection No. 2: In 1947, the Arabs rejected the United Nations partition plan.
Rejection No. 3: In 1967, in the course of defeating the attempt by Egypt, Syria and Jordan to destroy Israel, Israel conquered the West Bank from Jordan, Gaza from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria. Most Israelis had no interest in retaining Gaza or almost any part of the West Bank except for East Jerusalem, the Jewish city in which Jews have lived for 3,000 years, from 1,400 years before Muhammad was born. The Palestinians, as the Arabs of Palestine came to be known, and all the Arab states rejected partition and peace.
Fun fact: At this time is when the Arabs living in the area began to refer to themselves as Palestinians, in the hope that would help them get an actual state.
Rejection No. 4: In 2000, at Camp David, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 94 percent of the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital. But Arafat rejected the offer. In the words of U.S. President Bill Clinton, Arafat was “here 14 days and said no to everything.”
The offer included 97% of the occupied territories, additional land swaps, and $30 billion in compensation for the refugees. All Arafat had to do was recognize the state of Israel. He ran like a scalded cat!
Rejection No. 5: In 2008, Israel tried again. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert went even further than Ehud Barak had, expanding the peace offer to include additional land to sweeten the deal. The Palestinians said no, again.”
I could continue on in ad nosium.
You should continue. Why stop? At some point you’ll get to the point — confronting: on what authority the British had any authority to decide anything in Palestine. Then the point confronting: on what authority Zionist Jews had, to decide anything in Palestine. And eventually on what authority UNO had: to violate its charter with UNGA 181, denying natives their right to self-determination with 29 Nov. 1947 Partition Resolution.
What does it mean that a Non-binding, UNO General Assembly Resolution, which violated the organization’s charter on right to self determination, was basis for creation of Israel?
Read the King and Crane Commission Report [requested by Wilson] completed two decades before this, and discover that it was always known that imposing a Jewish State — thus usurping native population — would lead to conflict and war. The zionist project should be abandoned was their conclusion, because it would bring ruin.
Digest the Najib ‘Azuri, Le reveil de la nation arabe, The Awakening of the Arab Nation (1905) — who was perhaps first scholar to recognize — while Ottoman Empire was still intact — collision of Zionism Project in Palestine with its native peoples. This, written prior to the formation of USSR, as well. In fact, he predicted that this project would bring about great wars and destruction of region.
It was the USSR that published the secret Sykes/Picot agreements by early 1920s — demonstrating Britain and France had lied to the Arabs, about promises those European powers had made to them [saying they would be independent], to entice them to support Britain and France against Ottoman Empire, during WW I, which saw this empire destroyed, and birth of Turkey as nation state under a secular leader.
Instead, we got British Mandate over Palestine and French Mandate over greater Syria.
It would be a very interesting question to ask Putin or Lavrov what they think of the USSR decision to recognize Israel in 1948. Given all that was known about inevitable collision Zionism — and creation of state for Jews — against Arabs — would bring. People want to know what Russia’s plans might be for western Ukraine. . .and some day we’ll find out this as well. More on point: will Russia’s vision on how best to end current conflict in the Arab East be heeded?
In geo politics, the big powers tend to have the most say in matters. In 1948, the Soviet Union’s role in the middle east was important as well.
As occupying power Israel is legally bound to protect people under her occupation. The occupier has no right to “self defense.”
A band of Gazan break out of the Israeli-occupying gated/barricaded prison they live in, and allegedly do harm to settlers living in occupied Palestine. Is it the Gazans’ fault for breaking out of the prison, or the occupying powers’ responsibility for what they claim happened? Whose in charge? Is anyone accountable?
No, Israel is not at all totally justified in its outrage over the alleged slaughter of Jewish ‘civilians’ who choose to live in occupied Palestine at their peril, in a war zone, placed there by Israel/IDF as human shields. Israel, as the legal occupying power is responsible. Is responsible to protect people under occupation, including Jews residing on occupied lands.
One obvious thing this occupying power could do is tell these ‘civilians’ that they are in a war zone, ongoing since . . . how many decades now? In other words: GET OUT! would be rational thing for occupying power to tell these ‘civilians’ choosing to reside in war zone.
Instead, occupying power subsidizes them, builds settlements for them, bulldozes Palestinian homes for them, steals their land for Jewish settlers to build new homes in addition to those they’ve stolen, builds a great big wall in West Bank for them to segregate Palestinians from them, helps murder Arabs for them and with them, desecrates mosque in Jerusalem with them, and occasionally murders innocent Americans, including Rachel Corrie, bulldozed to death by IDF, and our brave men on USS Liberty, murdering 34 and injuring 171, using torpedo boats and aircraft fire power, etc.
There is an old Arabic saying: I hit him then I cried.
This sums up occupying Israel to a tee.
And for “Israel” to moan and bitch and claim outrage about conditions they created — on their own — and perpetuate — with multi billions of dollars from us, US taxpayers — really?
If Israel is serious about protecting Jews then wisdom dictates: they never should have placed them in harms way — in the first place. And, at this late hour, they would end this occupation once and for all. Get out. They made their bed and no one put a gun to their heads to live on stolen land under military occupation.
One other bit of history: USSR was among or the first country to legally recognize the Jewish State when she so declared herself 1948 — on the basis of a non-binding UNO General Assembly Resolution, as the British could no longer handle the obscene and horrible mess they created in Mandate Palestine: Irgun, Stern Gang, and other terrorist organizations whose leaders would become Israel’s leaders for decades and decades. Quite similar, in fact, to Ukraine, circa February 2014.
Now, Russian Federation claims she does not believe in regimes that oppress others. Well, mother Russia, this is the same bed you were first or among the first to make — falling over yourself to be first to recognize Jewish State.
Gross ignorance and hubris got us here.
When my tax dollars no longer fund and pay for and underwrite Israeli war crimes and occupations of Arab lands, I could be more inclined to be lectured to about Jewish settlers [who are harmed as direct consequence of] living on other people’s land their Israeli state has stolen. . . but how innocent are these victims who live in war zones of their own free will? aided and abetted by my government?
Not addressing these questions first must render moot what happens when the turds hit the fan, as happens over and over and over again, in this region.
The fact of the matter is: the occupation. Get out. Otherwise face the consequences living on stolen land.
What kind of person would choose to live in such extreme danger? and worse, raise children there and put them in harms way, pray tell?
In a sane society, all those parents would have their children removed from them by the state social service agencies, so as to prevent abuse and neglect.
Choosing to live in a war zone on stolen land is asking for trouble. And the Jewish State and my tax dollars encourage this wanton recklessness, child abuse, insanity.
This is what imperialism looks like and is. And I am expected to say: This Is OK.
This is not OK. And for calling a spade a spade, we are labeled anti semites by the criminal imperialist filth.
Their [Russia and the West’s] sacred cow, Israel, came into existence only because of collusion between them in violation of UN Charter in 1947 Partition of Palestine — that denied natives their right to self determination. The fact war erupted by Israel declaring her statehood 14 May 1948 only underscore this criminal partition resolution in all its aspects.
The Jewish State’s existence can only continue provided Russia continues her participation in this “rules-based” collusion, which apparently she will continue.
Russian Jews — settlers — currently number about 1.25 million in the Israeli state of 9.2 million.
Last year Russia Today published: ‘This is something that only Russian Jews can do’: How modern Zionism was created 125 years ago, that includes a section titled “The Soviet Union as Israel’s best friend”.
https://www.rt.com/news/561709-125-years-of-zionism/?ysclid=lnrm1bd3wj330562795
Putin factually stated: Russia is only state that has and can guarantee Ukraine’s territorial integrity. West pretended not to notice — and ignored it outright.
Whatever one may think of Russia’s middle east policy viz. Palestine, it has been consistent since 1947, when the Soviet Union pulled out all the stops to create a Jewish State [which was a European and USA project just as much and/or more so]:
“Studies of the Palestinian issue have shown that the Jews and Arabs in Palestine don’t want or cannot live together. And this welcomes a logical conclusion that if these two peoples, inhabiting Palestine and both having a history deeply rooted in that country, cannot live side by side within one state, we have no choice but to establish two states, instead of one – an Arab state and a Jewish one. And the Soviet delegation strongly believes that there is no other viable option available,” the USSR chief delegate to the UN said prior to the 29 November 1947 non-binding affirmative vote in the General Assembly.
The blasphemy of this logic thus would rule out ANY right of return of Palestinians to their property and land that would become Jewish State.
Turns out there was no Arab state created in Palestine, more land was stolen, more wars — and for decades, Russian Federation and Soviet Union say: implement Security Council resolutions 242 [1967 War] and 338 [1973 War].
And supports the Jewish State.
And supports a Palestine state, with “Jerusalem as its capital.”
Just days ago Putin [again] said: “The huge tragedy that Israelis and Palestinians are now experiencing is a direct result of the failed policies of the US in the Middle East.”
https://tass.com/politics/1690139
He omitted criminal role of USSR.
His reference includes and was germane: to US policies and actions, blocking . . . US has always blocked implementation of 242 & 338 — that require Israel to abandon occupied Golan Heights, Gaza region and West Bank and Jerusalem.
While Soviet Union pushed creation of Israel, based on nonsense; and what in essence is the folly of “rules based” order — used by big powers, when their actions collide with international law and UN charter — her policy has been consistent.
West — as is crystal clear now: never lifted a finger to end occupation, despite all manner of “promises” and “peace plans” and “roadmaps” and what not. To point that now, West supports barbarity and all manner of war crimes — as if they have no oars in the water. West’s policy is obstructing settling conflict.
“Jews and Arabs in Palestine don’t want or cannot live together,” the Soviet UN delegate said in 1947 — ignoring the fact of: out of control European immigration to Palestine in that past half-century, that “upset the apple cart” as it were.
This Soviet delegate also claimed “these two peoples, inhabiting Palestine and both having a history deeply rooted in that country” is saying Russian Jews, among the new arrivals in Palestine, are part of ancient Israelite kingdom & Judea and Samaria.
And delegate said: “there is no other viable option available.”
This statement was most unfortunate. Neither Britain, USA, France, USSR possessed any authority, moral, legal, or otherwise, to dictate what and who should have rights to occupy lands other than on their own sovereign land. And yet they colluded in this “rules-based” perfidy.
This is the root of present conflict: spawned via outside powers meddling outside their own sovereign state. And now Israel says it’s anti semitic to challenge their war crimes and barbarity — that the above quartet mid-wived more than anyone.
-30-
Jim…Hello, I like your energy….I don’t know all of your facts….I know enough however. You said: ” West supports barbarity and all manner of war crimes “…., I agree and I also say barbarism is prevailing almost everywhere on this planet presently, while the worse barbarians are wearing neckties and ugly suits and encouraging citizens to simply go shopping, spend money, then go to church and be preached to. Never ask the minister if he is receptive to another view. Better yet, tell the minister he is ultimately irrelevant ! How can we be so weak and frightened and conditioned to be so compliant, so obedient. Well, that’s what the indoctrination system is about; acquiring compliance and blind obedience. So we’ve discussed the past and the present. How can we write or rewrite the future. We cannot continue with this insanity ! I think we need to erase the mental blackboards and rediscover life. Go blank? That’s a good sign ! As the old saying goes…and I’m not fond of old sayings, however….turn the question marks into exclamation points !
Totalmente de acuerdo
‘You’re wrong, I’m right’ doesn’t solve the problem David, because that’s exactly what the other side says, and fervently believes.
In the kingdom of the blind _ _ _ _
Another great read. I am equally disgusted with RFK Jr. I am too old, impatient and inarticulate to voice such an opinion as yours, but I’m glad you did and I agree 100%. The last self declared presidential candidate with any accurate candor is Dr Shiva, who has declared all other presidential candidates as Israel cocjsuckers.
Spoken like a true four degree MIT graduate who by the way was the inventor of email.
“Everyone knows that running for the U.S. presidency creates strange bedfellows, but your touting of the Israeli propaganda in which you conflate the Palestinian people with Hamas to justify massacring civilians is beyond strange – it is immoral.”
Running for president is immoral act in the first place, because one gets strange bedfellows, as you mildly said.
That goes for any elections nowadays, they are a contest in choosing the lesser evil, good is not on repertoire. Majority of people perceive elections like a trolley problem and apply utilitarian ethics. But it’s not about a trolley problem, you have another option, you can always raise your middle finger and don’t participate in the charade and have a moral high-ground.
Yeah….hope perishes last…dear voter, be aware, even a Messiah might not be able to rectify this System.
Another moral judgement from comments:
” I think supporting innocent civilians on both sides is the most moral and just position them and us to take.”
No no, the most moral position is PEACE.
Peace, nothing to add, nothing to deduct.
RFKjr could take this position, although I’m not sure that people would understand him. Re-framing the problem seems to be very hard mental task for many.
Yes Ed but are you really surprised? Let down perhaps but RFK’s fate is the fate of all idealists; make noise about issues that don’t really count in the scheme of things but inevitably reveal your true colours when push comes to shove. In other words RFK Jr., put you money where your mouth is! Sadly, depressingly, he fell at the first hurdle.
This letter is an “epistle” in the biblical sense: it is written as a kind of spiritual counsel to a fellow believer, urging him to live up to the demands of conscience.
I agree with one of the earlier comments on this post: “Blind allegiance to Israeli tyranny is a blasphemous misunderstanding of what ‘chosen people’ means.” Another way of saying this is that Zionism is a heresy, an attractive heresy for many Christians, but nonetheless a fatal misunderstanding of the truth revealed in Jesus Christ — and, by extension, a misunderstanding of the truth revealed in the Hebrew scriptures. A God who jettisons basic morality, who demands the blood of the innocent for a political goal, who justifies a lie, is not the God of the Bible.
Have a good look, RFK Jr.’s principle character trait is cowardice. Surely no one can believe he is willing to die for what he “believes” in?
Cowardice or opportunist? Or perhaps a mix of both actually. I should imagine the sheer weight that the Israeli lobby exerts on the US political class is very hard to resist (or dismiss). I mean it clobbered Bernie Sanders as well and for the same reasons, after all, it’s all about votes isn’t it, thus once you enter the ‘game’, you have to play to win and RFK clearly thinks he has a chance which means grabbing every vote and given the immense power of the Israeli lobby, to ignore them, worse, enrage them, means failure. I really didn’t expect him to do any different, to do otherwise is to commit political (if not physical) suicide.
I don’t smell cowardice. I smell opportunism, habit, maybe indoctrination, and yes, political expediency. RFK Jr is human, so naturally has blind spots – he’s also the consummate Insider’s Outsider. He’s been walking the line to get all the votes while upholding the principles….and he is has the insider’s view of geopolitics. Many were simply willing to overlook his hard line re Palestine when it wasn’t in the news much. Now it’s front and center, everything’s not so rosy. But that is good. No heroes, folks. Only lesser evils, if we have the wisdom to choose them.
I find lesser-evilism even more dangerous than Zionism.
I.M.H.O.The promise of Yahveh to Abraham and his seed was that when his offspring placed their absolute trust in Him He would multiply them and bless them and He would bless them that bless Abraham and his seed and curse them that curse Abraham and his seed and in this way Yahveh would bless all the nations on the Earth. The sin of Israel is always the sin of forgetting; forgetting what it was like to be a slave, forgetting what it was like to be a sojourner without a home, forgetting what it is like to be the target of genocide and forgetting their God given mission as a chosen people. Yahveh has made it clear in the Torah that if they forget who they belong to and what they have been delivered from that Yahveh will bring to them the plagues and punishments laid upon their taskmasters, the inhospitable nations and their tyrannical genocidal enemies. At the mountain of the covenant they agreed to the terms of being Yahveh’s chosen people. “Moses called for the elders of the people and placed before them all these words which Yahweh had instructed him. Now all the people responded together and said: All that Yahweh speaks we shall do.” The fifth book of the Torah, “(The Book of) ‘These are the words,’” Chapter 28 needs to be re-read in Israel. It is the hardest thing in the world to be Gods chosen people. They are in the spotlight again and if they remember their mission and make every effort and emulate the sacrificial spirit of the Akedah; then Yahveh will intervene and bless them as he did Abraham. The world is watching and so is Heaven, “life and death, have I set before thee, the blessing and the curse,––therefore shouldest thou choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed; to love Yahweh thy God, to hearken unto his voice, and to cleave unto him,––for, he, is thy life, and thy length of days, that thou mayest abide upon the soil which Yahweh sware to thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, to give unto them.” If Israel does good then they will be blessed but it won’t end there. All the nations will be blessed. But if Israel fails they will be judged, but it won’t end there, all the nations will be judged. Pray for Israel, pray for the world.
Your article showed up on the Lew Rockwell site where I was grateful to read it. I’ve been watching RFK jr, wondering if he was the alternative to current dismal candidates, and now have learned that, no, he is not. Your eloquent epistle made that clear. Thank you. Blind allegiance to Israeli tyranny is a blasphemous misunderstanding of what ‘chosen people’ means.
I will continue to check in on your writings, in the ongoing search for leaders without gaping flaws. Or is that an oxymoron?
I have a theory of “the three P’s”. Politicians, policemen, and priests are the three professions that attract the very people who should NEVER be allowed to hold those positions.
HI SKIP….I THINK you are absolutely correct. In fact, I think if we were sane and not influenced by the indoctrination system that we still refer to as education….we would not have or need these 3 categories of parasites ! So the academics write, we read, ( the wrong writings ) we are inactive, we continue to have parasites…we do not look for information that can help us transcend our social conditioning so we can think more humanely. Yes, there are many questions about all of this. I think we all have the answers if we ‘erase the blackboard’ so we can See !
” I think supporting innocent civilians on both sides is the most moral and just position them and us to take.”
By omission Hamas is practically vindicated.
Hamas’ instigation of this war brought about the inevitable result of bringing the horrors of war down on the heads of the Gazans who they have no regard for. They have manipulated the world, and you can be assured that they are well pleased with that the world has reacted just as planned. Any rant that does not lay the primary guilt on those that knowingly instigated the evil, but rather blames those that were the target of that evil is applauding and supporting the further repetition of the same.
War once begun takes on a life of its own. War is judgment, destruction, death of innocence and combatants, and it is genocide. Those who truly instigate it do not fight or die in it . The best we can do is pray that it come to a speedy end, and help those affected by it in whatever means we can. The rest, and the judgment of evil is ultimately in God’s hands, no one will be unpunished for their part in it! We all should tremble to consent or vindicate any one party over the other.
Hamas was funded by Israel. Go check it out. Fact. Years from now I have no doubt we will learn this was all setup so Israel could wipe out Gaza.
Hi Lisa…I wouldn’t doubt that Hamas was/is a front group and I wouldn’t doubt there are some REAL human beings within Hamas. What I do know…I’m tired of barbarians who wear neckties and suits made from very ugly fabrics ! But the ugly fabrics are the clues that beneath is ROT !
By omission genocide is practically vindicated
At the risk…Trying to encourage the writers and readers of this “REMINDER” to find Ed Sanders “Graphic History”–BROKEN GLORY-THE FINAL YEARS OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY. ARCADE PUBLISHING, 307 WEST 36TH STREET, 11TH FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10018. (2018) ARCADE@SKYHORSEPUBLISHING.COM
“ONE’S FILE, YOU KNOW, IS NEVER QUITE COMPLETE; A CASE IS NEVER REALLY CLOSED, EVEN AFTER A CENTURY, WHEN ALL THE PARTICIPANTS ARE DEAD.” Graham Greene, The Third Man
Thank you, Ed. I am grateful that my work is of use to you in this powerful, lucid call to consciousness and conscience.
Profound, all of it. Beth Ingham told me about your reference in this piece by Ed.
Wonderful, Mr Curtin (my sophmore Cathedral theology teacher!).
You made me smile, Daniel, after these “few” years!
You’re epistle reflects my views and has offered me additional food for thought. Other notables could benefit from your letter to Bobby. For example, Tulsi Gabbard also made a public statement supporting the Israeli government against the Palestinians. Too bad, I was a big fan prior to her statement. I think supporting innocent civilians on both sides is the most moral and just position them and us to take.
I was also greatly disturbed by RFK Jr’s support of the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. Tulsi Gabbard is another who has disappointed me with her stance. It shows real heartlessness towards the sanctity of all life.
That said, JFK’s American University speech was probably the final nail in his coffin. The war machine has no conscience, and any who become a serious threat to it face the same ultimate demise. It will take a major elevation in the consciousness of humanity to end this evil. If we wait for a savior to come to us through politics, we will wait in vain.
Tulsi Gabbard ‘disappointed’ you.?
How about just another piece of shit who has shown her true colors.
Don’t we have enough evidence now in these times to finally realize
what ALL politicians of ALL stripes are?
You can not ‘run’ for president and not be a psychopath.
Murder on a mass scale is part of the job.
So very true:
“You can not ‘run’ for president and not be a psychopath.
Murder on a mass scale is part of the job.”
A sad, bizarre fact….
Thank you Ed. Remembering Sirhan’s notebooks from way back when I was 16 years old – if I remember correctly Sirhan had supposedly written over and over in those notebooks about how – RFK “must die” – almost as if it had been drilled into his head by the latest CIA mind control techniques.
In a moment of humor dark enough to fit the times I can today imagine candidate Bobby Jr. sleeping fitfully each night while the CIA uses its latest technology to send his brain the same message over, and over, and over – “I must support Israel, I must support Israel, I must support Israel!” Rendering Bobby Jr,, ironically, to be just another “patsy” of the deep state. : /
How else to explain such completely blatant hypocrisy and moral cowardice?
It is interesting that you mention mind control which has been going on for a long time. Many people are aware of the top-secret MKULTRA program funded by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which was carried out between 1957 and 1964 at McGill University. Dr. Naomi Wolf described the change in the personality of people she knows in New York after the COVID mRNA shots were rolled out in 2021 (https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/expressionless-babies-bored-lovers?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2). Its as though the human mind has been hacked and is being reprogrammed by a modern version of MKULTRA. I have noticed an almost collective madness among the people I know who refuse to even discuss the science behind the COVID shots or climate change but attributed this to what Dr. Mattias Desmet, a professor of psychology at Ghent University in Belgium referred to as Mass-Formation, ” a phenomenon in which individuals become so detached from reality”. This detachment from truth and reality is like an impenetrable shield that has been constructed around the minds of most people. With regard to Robert Kennedy Jr.’s seemingly uncharacteristic response to the genocidal slaughter of women and children now taking place in Gaza, he may have been threatened with the extinction of his entire family if he did not support this genocide. Never underestimate the power of the powerful forces who now rule over the entire western world and beyond. They are quite willing to commit assassinations and mass murder without shedding a tear because they are without a shred of humanity. Satanic is the only word that seems appropriate when trying to understand this unspeakable evil.
“You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” John 8:44
Thank you Ed. I was concerned when RFK aligned himself strongly with Robert Malone, a troubling and divisive figure in the ‘freedom’ movement. Your MLK quote is profoundly apt. I sincerely hope RFK’s conscience trumps his political ambitions. It is better to lose than to lose ones soul and we need honest, moral and truthful people far more than even minimally morally compromised leaders. We must save ourselves, no ‘leader(s)’ will. “And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular – but one must take it simply because it is right.”
how is Malone a troubling and divisive figure?
Robert Malone tweeted an attack on Mike Yeadon for what he claims are baseless accusations against the deep state role in the COVID/ vaccines narrative, despite the fact that Malone has been saying almost the same statements. Margaret Anna Alice wrote a piece directed at Malone, defending Yeadon.
He has attacked a number of people in the “Freedom” movement. See https://breggin.com/, https://breggin.com/Selected-Key-Documents-and-Commentary-on-Malones-25-Million-Lawsuit and https://breggin.com/Dr-Malone-Others-Weigh-In.
He still promotes that there was a virus.
Ed, “Martin Luther King, Junior,” please please, do not use in the same sentence with “Bobby.”
Hang in there, Ed.
“It’s time to hold college administrations responsible for the epidemic of campus antisemitism by insisting on zero-tolerance policies.,” RFK Jr. wrote in reply, endorsing the banker’s call to censorship.
“Zero tolerance policies for unapproved speech — the RFK position on speech.
Does it matter where and when and how R-Effing-K, Junior went with Epstein?
In what is surely totally unrelated news, via Newsweek:
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has clarified the nature of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, after it was revealed that the presidential hopeful had flown on the convicted sex offender’s private jet.
The independent 2024 presidential candidate was among a number of high-profile people who in 2021 were named as passengers on Epstein’s jet, which was often used to transport guests to the financier’s private Caribbean island, Little Saint James.”
+–+
The great aircraft carrier, that’s Israel for USA according to Bobby.
+–+
You want to get behind presidential and vice presidential candidates?
Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia, presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, speak out against Biden’s plans to spend $100 billion for a proxy war against Russia, preparation for war with China, and the unfolding genocide against Palestinians
Claudia De la Cruz, presidential candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, blasted Biden’s oval office address last night as a “pathetic attempt to rally people behind endless war for empire.”
She said that, “It is sickening that Biden wants to pour $100 billion of additional money into the war machine when people are going hungry, can’t afford rent, can’t afford childcare, and are living on the brink of environmental catastrophe. Working people have no interest in a war with Russia over Ukraine or China over Taiwan – only the military contractors and the Wall Street banks would benefit. The genocidal attack on Gaza should not be funded by our tax dollars – all aid to Israel must stop immediately.”
De la Cruz’s running mate Karina Garcia condemned the anti-Palestinian rhetoric in Biden’s speech,
“Biden echoed some of the most outrageous anti-Palestinian talking points, referring to the notion that Palestinian resistance fighters use the population of Gaza as ‘human shields’ and stating as a definite fact the Israeli claim that they were not responsible for the horrific hospital bombing that killed over 500 people. These lies are designed to excuse Israeli war crimes, and give Israel cover to commit more atrocities in the future.”
Claudia De la Cruz rejected the whole imperial premise behind the speech,
“Biden said in his address that ‘American leadership is what holds the world together’. By that he means that American banks and corporations should dominate the entire planet. But the interests of poor and working people are not the same. We should unite with people all around the world in opposition to U.S. empire!”
Is this another opportunity to think beyond ‘leaders and followers’, male dominated hierarchies, classism, plantation mentality, rich v.s. poor, the illusion of voting to bring change, (after 247 years, one would think we would wise up ) being distracted by news events that are the results of our absurdities every single day, the always implied or overt threats ? And yes, the Native People’s have always been our Palestinians. The national pastime of marching-in-place-in-quicksand will most likely continue! THAT’S WHAT IS VERY SAD !
Brilliantly stated, and timely in its urgency. Thank you.
I wrote you a long time go to wake up.
NO politician and no pulling the plunger for the lesser of two evils is going to save you/us.
This is an individual spiritual war and humanity is losing, big time.
The fix is in, the script is written and time is short.
I simple can not understand why intelligent people like yourself can not seem to figure this stuff out. It’s not rocket science.
Your article is a total waste of your breath.
Wake up.
I will add that if you watch what is happening RIGHT NOW on Al Jazera from the reports from the main hospital….the most sickening images and human horror ever shown live on tv certainly in my lifetime you will vomit in disgust….you will cry in your heart and in your soul if you are indeed a human being and you will come to the immediate conclusion that RFK and his ilk be they ferocious proponents or soft apologists, that RFK is a fucking piece of shit. Period.
Beautifully presented letter, I had been very interested to hear if your support for RFK had wavered at all amidst his steadfastly zionist talking points. Considering the number of times he has doubled down, I cannot imagine he’ll shift any time soon towards a position less brutish than Biden already takes. If that is the case, I’ll be interested to read any thoughts you might have about Cornel West’s candidacy.