The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describes itself as a non-profit 501(c) (3) organization, “founded in 1913,” which “is the world’s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.”
The word “Semitic” has a very specific meaning, denoting a particular family of languages and the peoples who speak those languages. The Oxford Dictionary defines “Semitic” as:
- Relating to or denoting a family of languages that includes Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic and certain ancient languages such as Phoenician and Akkadian, constituting the main subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic family
- Relating to the peoples who speak the Semitic languages, especially Hebrew and Arabic
But the ADL has its own exclusive definition for “Semitism” to mean not “peoples who speak Hebrew and Arabic” — which would include Arabs like Palestinians, as well as exclude most self-identified Jews in the world who do not speak Hebrew. Instead, what the ADL means by “Semitic” are so-called Jews, 90% of whom curiously, according to DNA studies, are not genetic descendants of the ancient biblical Hebrews. (More on this below.)
On April 28, 2016, after Donald Trump delivered his first public address on his foreign policy and world outlook, in which he states that putting America first is the center around which his foreign policy pivots, the Anti-Defamation League issued a press release actually demanding that Trump stop using his “America First” slogan, insisting that the slogan is “anti-Semitic”.
And the reason why the ADL thinks putting America first is anti-Semitic?
In the words of the press release, because the slogan had been used “in the months before Pearl Harbor by a group of prominent Americans seeking to keep the nation [America] out of World War II,” who had formed the “America First Committee.”
According to the ADL, the America First Committee was tainted by “undercurrents of anti-Semitism and bigotry” because one of its members was the aviator Charles Lindbergh — the first man to cross the Atlantic by plane — “who sympathized with the Nazis and whose rhetoric was characterized by anti-Semitism and offensive stereotypes, including assertions that Jews posed a threat to the U.S. because of their influence in motion pictures, radio, the press, and the government.”
ADL’s CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt said, “for many Americans, the term ‘America First’ will always be associated with and tainted by this history. In a political season that already has prompted a national conversation about civility and tolerance, choosing a call to action historically associated with incivility and intolerance seems ill-advised.”
The press release concludes that “In a letter to Donald Trump, ADL urged him to refrain from using the slogan in the future.”
But is the ADL’s problem really about what it claims — the negative historical association of the slogan “America First,” of which 99.9% of Americans are ignorant until, of course, the ADL made a point of it? Or is the ADL’s objection actually about what Trump’s slogan means, which is putting the national interests of America first — above and before the interests of other nations and states — a right that the ADL would be the first to insist for Israel?
Paul Joseph Watson of Infowars points out that although most Americans (62%) in a recent survey said the U.S. is giving “too much” foreign aid to Israel, 83 of the 100 U.S. senators signed on to demand Israel be given the “largest single pledge of military assistance to any country in US history.”
Indeed, in fiscal year 2014, Israel was the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, as measured by aid received per person recipient.
Watson observes:
“What Americans view as in their interest is the inverse of what our leaders view as in their interest.
According to the ADL’s interpretation of history, pointing out this divergence makes you an anti-Semite.
Fact is, there is no reason the President of America should put any other country but America first, that the ADL would suggest any differently shows where their allegiance lies.”
Indeed, in a recent op/ed, “If you’re Jewish, don’t vote for Bernie Sanders,” New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser precisely reveals that tribal mentality, calling on fellow Jews not to vote for Sanders — not because of his socialist ideology or policies, but because he’s not tribal enough, i.e., Sanders is not loyal to the “Chosen People” and to Israel.
Jews are the “Chosen People”?
The overwhelming majority (90%) of both U.S. Jews and the 13+ million Jews worldwide are Ashkenazis — Jews in and from Europe, and their descendants. But DNA studies have found that Ashkenazis are not biological descendants of the ancient Hebrews, but rather of the Khazars, an amalgam of Turkic clans that settled the Caucasus in the early centuries CE and converted to Judaism in the 8th century.
Please see a compelling study on this by Eran Elhaik, “The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses,” the Oxford journal on Genome Biology and Evolution, vol. 5: issue 1, pp. 61-74 (published online Dec. 2012).
In other words, since Ashkenazis are not biological descendants of the ancient Hebrews and since many Ashkenazis in the U.S. and in Israel are not religious, i.e., not Judaic, it’s a misnomer for them to call themselves Jews and God’s “chosen people” still — as if Jesus, by His sacrifice, had not made a New Covenant that “makes the first one obsolete” (Hebrews 8:13).
There’s a fascinating passage in Revelation 3:9:
I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars . . . .
One can’t help but wonder that, since He is God and therefore knows all things past, present, and future, by “those who claim to be Jews though they are not,” our Lord Jesus Christ was sending us a warning through time about 90% of so-called Jews today.
Why U.S. evangelical Christians continue to unconditionally and uncritically support Jews and Israel is a mystery.
H/t FOTM‘s MomOfIV.
~Eowyn
