Zion - the Promised Land - too Little, too Late

“Pour out thy wrath upon the Gentiles (Goyim) that have not known thee.” (Psalm 79:6)

(LAVERNE, OR) - It occurred to me as I was rereading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s unfinished novel, Dr. Grimshawe’s Secret, that the good Doctor’s grim reflection on the human condition, delivered to his adopted child, Ned, knowing the child was too young to grasp his revelation, might well give us pause as the state of Israel seeks to tether itself by an umbilical cord of self-defense to the United States through a strategic ally agreement.

“That is a question, indeed, my friend Ned!” putting forth a whiff of smoke and imbibing a nip from his tumbler … framing his answer in such a way as to let out his secret mood to the child, because knowing he could not understand it:

“Whence did you come? Whence did any of us come? Out of the darkness and mystery; out of nothingness; out of a kingdom of shadows; out of dust, clay, mud, I think, and to return to it again, whence we have brought a good many shadowy revelations, purporting that it was no pleasant one. Out of a former life, of which the present one is the hell! And why are you come? Faith, Ned, he must be a wiser man than Doctor Grim who can tell why you or any other mortal came hither; only one thing I am well aware of,--it was not to be happy. To toil and moil and hope and fear; and to love in a shadowy, doubtful sort of way, and to hate in bitter earnest---that is what you came for!”

Hawthorne returned from Europe in 1860 having fulfilled his position as United States Consul to Liverpool at the close of President Franklin Pierce’s term, followed by two years in Europe. He returned to an America embroiled in an internecine Civil War. For seven years till his death in 1864, he mulled and moiled on the life of Doctor Grimshawe, unable to bring closure to the work. But if one speculates on a life, devoted in his tales and novels, to the inner embroilment of the American mind molded by Puritanical thought, a twisted never ending battle between God and His creatures, embedded in superstition and myths, shrouded in beliefs that they too were God’s Chosen destined to fulfill a covenant between the Almighty and humankind, given by that very God the promised land, Zion here in the new world, driven to command and obey that they might bring truth to a heathen land, then we might understand the gloom that nests in the cobwebs of the Doctor’s study, where the ultimate end of us all is “to hate in bitter earnest—that is what you came for!” Thus we find the Puritans stealing land, enslaving savages, and exterminating tribes to further their hold on God’s gift.

What is it that nestles in Grimshawe’s thoughts but the ultimate psychological sickness that destroys both self and all, fear of all. For if the soul can find no solace in sister and brother, no hope in the community of people, no joy in sharing the fruits of this earth satisfied that this is our purpose, then are all of us victims of perceived hate or the perpetrators of hate, and life has no meaning. How horrific then that the “secret” desire proffered by AIPAC and the Zionist forces in Israel seeks to graft that state to the United States as a “special Security Ally” to ensure that this nation be burdened with their psychological albatross: fear of all, victims of unending condemnation, destined to never ending existential annihilation; and so the people of the United States become tethered to this fear that finds expression every Passover with the chant of the Psalm, “Pour out thy wrath upon the Gentiles.”

America has no need to “Pour out its wrath on the Gentiles,” it is a nation of Gentiles; it has rather to return to its founding declarations, to express the truth that the laws of nature taught it some 250 years ago: “All men are created equal,” that all have rights to life and happiness, that all should be free to worship as they desire and never should anyone be forced to cringe before a foreign god, that all are free to express what they believe and no man can take away that right. These beliefs contain no fear; they voice trust in all humankind; they enunciate the oneness of all displacing the notion of exceptionalness, superiority, separateness, exclusiveness and “chosenness” that divides and destroys; and they recognize the rights of all to share the wealth of this universe which sustains all living things and has authorized no select ownership for the few that they may capitalize on the many.

The Promised Land of Zion is a fabrication of the tribe that is beneficial to the few at the expense of the many; that is true of America’s Israelites that stole the land from those who lived in New England, and it is true of the new world order that declares it America’s responsibility to bring God’s gift to all, when it declares it alone has the right to decide what is the right. When the many are but the chattel of the few, their existence is at the mercy of those few who will willingly destroy their brethren to enhance their own coffers. That’s the world according to Dr. Grim, a world without understanding, without light, without mercy; a life of nothingness, of mud, clay, of dust, a life of inevitable loneliness and sorrow, a life without happiness for it is ruled by those who know no evil, and see no evil for the evil is inside of them and they do not know it.

William A. Cook is Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California where he served for 13 years as Vice President for Academic Affairs before assuming his faculty position in 2001. Prior to coming to California, he served as a Dean of Faculty, Chair of Department of English and faculty member at institutions large and small, public and private in four eastern states. He is an activist and a writer for numerous Internet publications including Counterpunch, Salem-News.com, Pacific Free Press in British Columbia, Dissident Voice and Information Clearing House, serving as senior editor for MWC News out of Canada, and contributing editor at the Palestine Chronicle, the Atlantic Free Press in the Netherlands, and the World Prout Assembly, his polemics against the Bush administration and the atrocities caused by Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert in Israel, now our 51st state, have been spread around the Internet world and translated into French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and Italian. Cook also serves on the Board of the People’s Media Project, interviews on radio and TV in South Africa, Canada, Iran and the United States and contributed for five years yearly predictions to the Hong Kong Economic News. This volume follows his Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East Policy, Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied: The Rape of Palestine and continues his scourge against the hypocrisy, deceit, and destructive policies that have characterized American mid-east policy and its destructive alliance with the Zionist forces that have turned Israel into an apartheid state determined to destroy the Palestinian people.

In addition to his polemics, he writes plays (The Unreasoning Mask, co-authored with his wife, D’Arcy, and The Agony of Colin Powell), satires (see “Advancing the Civilized State: Inch by Bloody Inch” in The Rape), and poetry (Psalms for the 21st Century). His most recent fictional work creates a morality tale based upon real life figures that haunt our lives, The Chronicles of Nefaria He can be reached at wcook@laverne.edu or www.drwilliamacook.com..

The Plight of the Palestinians: a Long History of Destruction is a collection of voices from around the world that establishes in both theoretical and graphic terms the slow, methodical genocide taking place in Palestine beginning in the 1940s, as revealed in the Introduction. From Dr. Francis A. Boyle’s detailed legal case against the state of Israel, to Uri Avnery’s “Slow Motion Ethnic Cleansing,” to Richard Falk’s “Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust,” to Ilan Pappe’s “Genocide in Gaza,” these voices decry in startling, vivid, and forceful language the calculated atrocities taking place, the inhumane conditions inflicted on the people, and the silence that exists despite the crimes, nothing short of state-sponsored genocide against the Palestinians.