Who is a Jew? Race, “the Chosen People” and Biopolitics

Israel is structured as the “homeland” of the race called “Jews,” but not for the faith of Judaism, since many who say they are “Jews” through faith are not racially qualified to be Israeli, and are thus excluded. To become an Israeli, one must possess state-approved racial credentials. Thus, geography is wedded to genetics (biopolitics), or what Friedrich Ratzel called “anthropogeography”: non-Jews are perpetually the Other who, because of their DNA, have no legitimacy, let alone place, within the state, or on the land; they are barely tolerated and openly hated. To then speak of “democracy” or even “civilization” in the context of Israel is to ignore this biopolitical fact. Historically, we must bear in mind that the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was grounded in the currents of eugenics of the 19th and 20th century. Thus, Israel is a habitation (Lebensraum) for the race officially labeled “Jews,” and none other; and the purpose of the state is the regeneration of “Jews.”

But such a biopolitical set-up requires that there be a clear, genetic demarcation of the “Jew” from the “non-Jew.” This distinction was once based on tradition, in that those people who belonged to historical Judaic faith communities were accepted as “Jews.” This meant that not only the majority Ashkenazi (from Europe) and the Sephardic (from North Africa), but also the Mizrahi (from Iran, Syria, Iraq), the Beta Israel (Falasha) of Ethiopia, the various Jewish groups of Yemen, India, Central Asia and China—were all regarded as belonging to a greater Jewry, although the latter six groups were given this status very reluctantly, if at all. Given the predominance of the Ashkenazi in Israel (since the state has always been a German Ashkenazi project), there is extreme prejudice against “Jews” who do not “look” like the Ashkenazi.

But also given this diversity—is there a distinct racial stock that can be clearly labeled as “Jew?” The state of Israel certainly thinks so, for it has various racial laws in place (the Jewish Nation-State Law, the Law of “Return,” the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law). This protection now also includes a state-mandated DNA test to determine the racial qualification of anyone wanting to immigrate to Israel. In fact, it is illegal and thus impossible for ordinary Israelis to get a DNA test (as commonly done in the rest of the world, as a personal, fun, genealogical project)—such a test is only possible via court order (the Genetic Information Law 5761, passed in 2000)—because only the state of Israel can say who is a proper “Jew.” Such racial policing by the state implies that Israeli bureaucracy possesses clear and precise racial biomarkers. The notion of a distinct race of “Jews” is paramount—which guarantees Israel’s uniqueness. Without it, the logic of Israel as a “the land for Jews” falls apart, and it would then be a country like any other in this world, where just ordinary folk live.

“The Chosen People”

Lurking behind this racial distinction is the Protestant reading of the Bible, whereby modern-day “Jews” are held to be a unique people, especially chosen by God to carry out divine work in the world. The common understanding therefore is that the people known as “Jews” today are direct descendants of individuals inhabiting Holy Scripture. In other words, there is a supposed unbroken racial continuity from Abraham to today, despite the glaring fact that Abraham neglected to leave behind a sample of his DNA. Likewise, there are no DNA samples on record for all the prophets, kings, chief priests, scribes, guards, sadducees and pharasees mentioned in Holy Writ. So, what possible basis can there be for any sort of claim of familial descent stretching back thousands of years?

This model of uniqueness was introduced and codified by the German Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz, in his eleven-volume History of the Jews (published, 1853-1870); and then other historians, such as Moses Hess, went on to affirm the notion of “Jews” as a distinct race—thus, there was a jüdische Typus (a “Jewish type”), which was “scientifically” knowable (and here the “science” of the day was utilized, such as skull shape, shape of ears, noses, etc.). These historians, in turn, were following the age-old Protestant project of aligning with God’s “Chosen people,” which created “Christian Zionism,” and which led to various wry remarks, such as, that “Presbyterians are Jews who eat pork.” Here, the question of race was, and remains, central. Non-Protestant Christians, on the other hand, understand the term “the Chosen people” as the Church, the people who follow Christ, and not as a distinct race.

Graetz’s notion also grounds the state of Israel, whereby the Bible is the legal “deed” of ownership of the land once known as Palestine, in that the “Jews” of today are phyletic heirs of the ancient Israelites, whose literary lives and episodes play out against the backdrop of Palestinian geography.

But once we wade into antiquity and actually try to locate the ancient “Jews” outside faith, we run into all kinds of difficulties—lexical, linguistic, archaeological, and historical. First, you might be wondering why “Jew” is here quotation marks—in order to indicate that this racial category is a recent one. In antiquity, we do not have a term that can be rendered as “Jew.” Instead, what we have is a geographical designation: “Judaean,” that is, someone who lived in the area called “Judaea.” In antiquity, there are Judaeans; there are no “Jews.” In other words, geography is not akin to race, and it is impossible to push the racial term “Jew” back, say, 3,000 years.

This also therefore means that it is impossible to pinpoint a distinct genetic marker within the archaeological record for “Jews.” What we have are people (Judaeans) living in the region now called Israel, a region called “Palestine” by the Romans. The race of these people is impossible to determine. Many communities lived in the area, and all of them shared an indistinguishable and thus common material culture (Egyptian, Canaanite, Philistine). In other words, there is no indication at all in archaeology that a tribe of Hebrews erupted into “the Promised land,” conquered and settled it (Grabbe, 2017, pp. 82-88). This then calls into question the sequence of events known as the “Exodus,” which is the etiology used to justify possession of Palestinian land that comprises the modern-day state of Israel. Whoever the people were that God chose have long disappeared in the obscurity of millennia. They have vanished without a trace. Nothing genetically associates them to the people that call themselves “Jews” today.

But the concept of the “Chosen people” also means a racial uniqueness from the rest of humanity (supremacism), which is widely assumed and believed, and given that archaeology, linguistics and history cannot verify such a distinction, a more crucial question arises: to say that modern “Jews” are heirs to an ancient Hebrew matrimony and patrimony (race and land)—means that we possess a precise genetic marker of the “Chosen people”—ancient and modern, both of which match perfectly. Of course, none exists. How then can the modern “Jew” be genetically matched with the people of the Bible, as their living heir?

Here, we could veer into the history of modern Judaism, but suffice it to say that it is not the one talked about in the Bible—whatever that ancient belief system may have been, it has little to do with the faith called “Judaism” today. The only indications we have of that ancient Judaean faith are from Josephus, and they do not match up at all with modern-day Judaic practice. In the words of Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser: “This is not an uncommon impression and one finds it sometimes among the Jews as well as Christians—that Judaism is the religion of the Hebrew Bible. It is, of course, a fallacious impression… Judaism is not the religion of the Bible” (Judaism and the Christian Predicament, p. 59). A fact very clearly enunciated by the Jewish Almanac (1980, p. 3): “Strictly speaking it is incorrect to call an ancient Israelite a ‘Jew’ or to call a contemporary Jew an Israelite or a Hebrew.”

In short, there is no unbroken genetic history of the “Chosen people” from Abraham down to our times, nor is there a persistent, unchanging “Judaism,” especially since much suggests that there were systems of belief that were pre-Mosiac (pre-Torah, as it were). Whoever the people of the Bible were, they have disappeared; perhaps because they either became Christians, or later, Muslim. Their genes are impossible to trace let alone find in the populations of today.

But does a race of “Jews” exist today? The majority of the inhabitants of Israel are Ashkenazi, and then Sephardic, and Mizrahi. What history does their DNA contain? In a nutshell, largely Central and Eastern European and with some Asian. The most recent study suggests that the Ashkenazi are from Italy, and are thus Europeans. Very many hopeful studies have been carried out, which seek to “prove” that the “Jews” of today are indeed the descendants of the ancient Israelites. The originary assumption of all these analyses is to assert vague claims about continuity of ancient bloodlines, such as the Levites or the Cohenim. Needless to say, no one possesses the genomes of ancient Levites and Cohenim, against which to compare their modern descendants. Much is also made of the rare disorders that afflict “Jews” (Tay-Sachs, Neimann-Pick, and Gaucher); but again, these diseases are hardly confined to the “Jews” alone and are widespread in other groups.

More sober and neutral studies and analyses come up with a very different picture—that those we call “Jews” today are a mongrel lot of Romans, Greeks, Anatolians, Slavs, Iranians, Greater Turks (Khazar) and North Africans, with very little Middle Eastern components (of course, “Middle Eastern” itself is a vague category, which in no way can imply direct descent from Abraham). Such neutral studies are routinely attacked and vilified by those with vested interests—but they are never negated. In fact, a recent challenge by the eminent Israeli geneticist, Eran Elhaik, to prove “Jewishness” once and for all, using very precise criteria, was accepted and taken up by only two of the many pro-“Chosen-people” geneticists. And the results these two brought in only confirmed once again that a distinct race of “Jews” does not exist. There are only people of varied and mixed descent—like the rest of humanity. Those that believe in the “Chosen people” supremacy simply believe in a lie.

Biopolitics

It was Johann Rudolf Kjellén, who coined the phrase “biopolitics” (as well as the phrase “geopolitics”), by which he understood the state as an “ethnic individuality” which gives it organic power used to dominate others in order to persist. In this process, the myth of the “Chosen people” is essential as the ground upon which the entirety of the Zionist project that is Israel rests. This myth gives Israel power over others, especially over Protestant America whose unbounded support is legendary and uncompromising (billions of dollars and weapons), because it believes that it is thus aligned with God’s “Chosen people” (and all manner of Bible quotations are tossed about as “proof” for such support).

Therefore, Israel presents itself as the land of the racially homogeneous “Chosen people,” and this explains its authoritarianism when it comes to the Palestinians—because Israel is a closed community with supposed common DNA, inherited from dim antiquity, which can only mean that other races must exist in a hierarchy of inequality with “Jews,” since these Others mean to harm the “Chosen people.” In effect, the life of Israel (past, present and future) is determined by perceived hereditary biology for the welfare and protection of “Jews.” The baseline protection consists in discouraging and religiously denying any mixed marriage and extra-marital sex between “Jew” and “non-Jew.”

The entirety of Israel’s actions, political and social, are best understood as expressions of “Jewish” biology, whose welfare is guaranteed by the state’s innate race-based structure—that is, the essentialized association of DNA with geography. “The Chosen people” thus can do no wrong, for they are merely pursuing their biological destiny.

Perhaps, Israel some day will learn to live without the crutch of race and will abandon its supremacist ideology. If it does not, it will eventually disappear, as “Jewish supremacism” is a deadend.

C.B. Forde writes from rual Canada.

Featured: The Children of Israel Crossing the Red Sea, by Frédéric Schopin; painted ca. 1850-1860.

A “Nuremberg Trial” for Israel’s Crimes Against Palestinians?

Make no mistake. Israel has committed massive crimes in Gaza and in the West Bank against the Palestinians. When will the thousands killed get justice? Or are we all supposed to just go on with our lives and pretend that it’s all the pursuit of “the right of self-defense?” Who are these IDF snipers who anonymously shoot children, and no one is even curious to know who these killers are? Is this the way of war now, according to the “international rules based order” that we should be so proud of in the West, which is supposedly the hallmark of our “civilization?”

A day of reckoning will come. There are good men and women who are wokring to make that a reality.

And what are we to make of our politcal class that utters not a peep about the slaughter that Netanyahu is doing, but who earlier could not get the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for President Putin fast enough, because Putin was assumed to have “kidnapped” Ukrainian orphans that they might have a decent life in Russia. But Netanyahu can kill as many children as he wants, since that is not a crime according to the “rule of law,” so the “jurists” at the ICC stay busy identifying “Russian crimes” that might be spotted at the backs of their cereal boxes.

Kurt Tucholsky was paraphrasing a French joke when he observed that “the death of one person: that’s a catastrophe. One hundred thousand dead: that’s a statistic!”

What Israel has done for over a month in Gaza is now a matter of statistics, for they have killed over 15,000 so far, more than 4000 of them children. It is the Palestinian Holocaust, because there are many more thousands buried under all those pancaked buildings where people once lived. And now that the Israeli assault continues, many thousands more will die.

Given these grim statistics, it becomes more and more important to remember the one person, rather than mention in passing the vast number of the now faceless thousands dead.

One such person was Elham Farah, a Christian Palestinian, living in Gaza, where she had taught music all her life. She was 84 years old and was the daughter of the Palestinian poet, Hannah Farah.

On November 12, 2023, an Israeli sniper shot her in the leg, as she came out of the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, where she had been sheltering to escape the bombing. She wanted to make sure that her home had not been hit. A sniper was waiting who are trained to shoot in the leg.

Those inside the church tried to rescue her, as she cried out for help, but people were afraid of Israeli snipers who long have had a reputation for being merciless. Elham Farah bled to death over several days. No one came to help her because of the sniping. She had just survived the bombing of Saint Porphyrios, the 850-year-old church in Gaza, which took the lives of 18 other Christians. Is such a death for a gentle old lady acceptable to those who see themselves as “civilized?” And why no one even knows about the crimes of Israeli snipers is unimaginable.

The hell unleashed by the Herod of our time in the Holy Land escapes the mind’s ability to describe horror—to see little children torn apart by bombs, dropped by pilots in their sophisticated flying machines is beyond the reach of words…

Then Herod perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry: and sending killed all the menchildren that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying:

A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not (Matthew 2:16-18).

“Rama” or “Ramah” is the name of several Palestinian towns, and “Rachel” stands in for all mothers whose children have been slaughtered by the powerful. Such killing was “righteous revenge” because the Hamas razzia of October 7th was fabricated as brutal, with beheaded babies and babies in ovens, when it was the IDF that did most of the slaughter of Israelis that day. Why the need to lie by Israel? The full truth about what really happened on October 7th is now coming out: Hamas killed IDF soldiers in combat. It was not a “terrorist” attack:

Thus on October 7th:

  • The IDF killed anything that moved;
  • Many Israeli captives were still alive, two days after October 7;
  • Israelis were killed by the IDF with heavy shelling of houses and cars;
  • Most of the civilian deaths happened because of the IDF;
  • It was a razzia by Hamas because most of the captives taken were IDF officers.

And in the West, we have the war enthusiasts, eagerly cheering on Netanyahu and his ilk to kill more, to kill without compunction, for there will be no red lines drawn, because Israel is for “civilization,” because that is how you fight wars, by killing as many babies as you can with bombs.

Perhaps in the months or even years ahead, there will come a time for a “Nuremberg Trial” for the murderers that are now in power in Israel—and for the IDF soldiers snipers who shot down Elham Farah and the two liitle Christian Palestinian boys, and also for the many “journalists” and “scholars” who justified and whitewashed the crimes against humnaity now permanently recorded for the world to see. Remember, they did hang Julius Streicher, even though he perosnally had killed no one.

C.B. Forde writes from rural Ontario, Canada.

Israel: Between Fear and Loathing

The razzia inside Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023 uncovered the extent of the hatred that circulates in that part of the world.

First, the obvious hatred of the Palestinians for Israel, being the outcome of a displaced people who face on a daily basis needless cruelty and a deep-seated racism at the hands of Israelis. Instead of using the past seventy-odd years of its existence to nurture goodwill and support, Israel instead has chosen to sell itself to the West as the final bastion of “civilization” before the vast sea of Eastern barbarity. It wins this “civilization” through naked force. The razzia did not come out of the blue; it was yet another bitter fruit of this Israeli “sales pitch.”

Second, the razzia revealed how deeply divided Israeli society is—those who support Prime Minister Netanyahu versus those who do not. If the razzia had not happened, Mr. Netanyahu would have been in serious trouble, with millions out on the street protesting his rule. That rift cannot be mended and the differences suddenly forgotten because of this new Gazan war. Thus, Israel now is caught between the “right-wing” Jews who hold power and those who oppose them. These right-wing Jews control the Israeli administration of PM Netanyahu. In fact, Reform, or liberal Judaism is dying out in Israel; it is the Orthodox (often right-wing) versions of the faith that are flourishing and who teach Jewish racial supremacism. The current Knesset is dominated by the right-wing whose supporters regularly gather to shout “Kill Arabs” and spit on Christian pilgrims and at churches, and who attack Christians. And then there are the laws which openly discriminate between Jew and Arab, so that there is an effective apartheid.

Third, and despite the fact the razzia was merciless and cruel, internationally it had the opposite effect than the one expected, of worldwide outrage against Hamas—instead, it has created two camps. The one led by Washington, along with all its vassalage, which supports Israel “for as long as it takes” (to lift a quotation from another recent US-led failed war), and a second camp which has galvanized around the Palestinians and has brought into focus Israel’s deeply anti-Arab culture.

It is a very curious thing—many Jews pride themselves on their charitable works and organizations, and yet they fail to practice the most basic charity when it comes to the Palestinians. It is also the mantra of such pro-Israel Jews therefore that to be anti-Zionist is to be anti-Semitic, which would make Jews like Rabbi Yisroel Feldman and his followers, the Neturei Karta or those of the American Council for Judaism very anti-Semitic. Thus, this charge, in this context, is meaningless and pointless. Israel has no answer to the many anti-Zionist Jews, who call for the dismantling of Israel and who just want to live peacefully with their God-fearing Arab neighbors. For Jews such as these, Zionism is the cooption of their faith for political ends and thus for whom the state of Israel is an affront to God.

In other words, Jewish identity is a very foggy and very contentious notion. Is a Jew a member of a race, or a follower of a faith? As is obvious, the answer will depend on what kind of a Jew is asked the question. There is no blanket defintion of a “Jew.”

Then, there are the Jews in the West who are well-attuned to this anti-Arab racism in Israel. As soon as the razzia took place, there was a rush on social media to channel the expected outrage into the “proper” narrative: Hamas are Nazis killing Jews. The first one out of the starting gate, it would appear, was one Ezra Levant of Rebel Media who brutally dumbed things down, via a meme, to make sure that you would have no choice but to “see” this event through the “correct” lens:

“The Nazis are back.” Mr. Levant, no doubt guided by the addage about a picture and the thousand words, failed to elaborate how the two images depict “the same thing,” let alone what that “thing” might be. When it comes to Palestine, there can be no complexity, no subtlety; there can only be Jews against Nazis. The other side of this logic is equally grim—that Israelis killing Palestinians is simply Jews killing Nazis, which can only be an aggregate “good.” And, of course, “Hamas” equals all Palestinians, equals all Arabs.

As for the young Israeli woman shown…

More importantly, for people like Mr. Levant, they fail to first explain how Palestinians were responsible for what Hitler did and why they must now assume the mantle of “Nazis?” And more crucially still, why must Palestinians suffer displacement and give up their own ancestral land to compensate European Jewry for what happened during World War Two? Answering these two questions is crucial before comparisions can be made. But racial stereotyping and then scurrility are far easier than facing the reality of the brutality of recent Israeli history.

The loudest spokesman of such a mindset is the American Ben Shapiro, a social media celebrity-commentator, who recently put things bluntly: “The idea is Israel kills enough of these sons of bitches that this is not a problem again.” In other words, ethnic cleansing is the only way forward for Israel to live in peace. What such a “peace” could possibly be is left undefined, or unconsidered. Back in 2002, the same Mr. Shapiro wrote an article in which he channeled Madeleine Albright (also Jewish, who considered 500,000 murdered Arab children a good price for peace): “…when I see in the newspapers that civilians in Afghanistan or the West Bank were killed by American or Israeli troops, I don’t really care. In fact, I would rather that the good guys use the Air Force to kill the bad guys, even if that means some civilians get killed along the way.” In this article, Mr. Shapiro summarized the “ethic” bolstering his bloodlust: “There is a Jewish proverb from Pirkei Avot (The Ethics of the Fathers): He who is kind to the cruel is cruel to the kind.” Needless to say, it is up to people like Mr. Shapiro to tell us who is “cruel” and who is “kind,” and how many Arabs need to be killed to make it all worthwhile.

Adding to the problem is the easy recourse to ontological reductionism, where the reality of what has been happening to the Palestinians for the past seventy-plus years can be rendered as a simplistic Hitlerian trope of Jews vs. Nazis, with the Israelis as always the “good guys.” Thus, having concluded that Hamas, and by extention Palestinians, and by extension Arabs, and by extention Muslims are all the same, Mr. Levant has since been busy on X exposing these new “Nazis.” For example,

And one more example:

What people like Mr. Levant fail to realize is that their strategy is easily used against them. Thus, for example, why is much of big finance in the hands of Jews (Blackrock, the Rothschilds, George Soros, Paul Singer, Moshe Kantro, etc.)? Why are so many people in President Biden’s adminstration also Jews, not to mention that Biden’s own family is Jewish as well as Mr. Trump’s? Therefore, of course, the Jews in power are always going to favor Israel, no matter what, and of course they are going to be anti-Arab. There are also the various influence-peddlars who promote hasbara, explaining Israel to the world (especially in Washington). And then there are agencies that police the non-Jewish West, lest it veer away from a pro-Jewish, pro-Israel stance, such as the ADL and AIPAC. But to ask such questions and say such things means being called “anti-Semitic.” However, when Jews, such as Mr. Levant and Mr. Shapiro, use the same strategy to target Arabs, it is not anti-Semitic and not racism (even though Arabs indeed are also Semitic), because the target group has been labeled as “Nazis.”

Needless to say, Mr. Levant and those like him have nothing to say about the on-going violence routinely carried out by ordinary Israelis against Palestinians. Why do such Israelis feel that they must wrest their way of living from the Other by bullying and through violence?

The good thing in all this—the ever-tiresome Jordan Peterson has finally abandoned his vocation of snide-sayer on X and gone back to his first love—offering bootless advice to the anserous.

Dr. Peterson was initially lusting for revenge, before being publically admonished…

After catching much flak, the good doctor got back to his stock-in-trade—stating banal obviousisms…

But let us leave these fantasists to their hobbyhorses and look at the reality of the situation.

As of March 2023, the total population of Israel is 9.7 million. Of these, 7.1 million are Jews, 2.1 million are Arabs (including Christians), and the remainder are other communities.

The total Palestinian population is 5.3 million; and if we add the 2.1 million Arabs living inside Israel, the total Arab population in the area equals 7.4 million. How exactly does a population of 7.1 million Israeli Jews hope to battle the Palestinians, plus the entire Muslim world which numbers well over two billion? Right now it is doing so because of Washington’s largesse for fealty rendered. But America is a very fickle friend to its vassals (just ask Ukraine, Afghanistan, etc.). What does Israel hope to achieve in the long-run—revenge or survival? As it is perhaps beginning to find out, it cannot do both. Defiance is hardly a good long-term foreign policy. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth will leave you both eyeless and toothless.

Another factor to consider. The Jews in Israel have come from all corners of the world (yet another reason that makes the term “anti-Semitic” meaningless). What is it that truly unites them all? Many of these Jews are dual citizens from the West who can easily go back should the going get tough. Of course, this luxury of dual-citizenship can never be available to the Palestinians.

Then there is the deep-rooted problem of racism in Israel. Something hardly mentioned. There exists a strict racial hierarchy among Israeli Jews—those that are the Falasha and other visible-minority Jews form the underclass and are treated horribly as menials. This Jew-on-Jew racism is deeply embedded in Israeli society, which means that the notion of a unified Jewish identity is a myth. What is Israel, therefore, for the Falasha?

This racism is also evident in the way Israel has treated the Black Hebrew Israelites, it has expelled them for not being “ethinically” Jewish. In the words of Benjamin Netanyahu, they are “infiltrators,” who can either “leave the country and take their money or to spend the rest of their life in an Israeli prison.” Does this mean that converts to Judaism are not welcome in Israel? If so, then why are atheist Jews welcome? If Jews are a distinct race, then Israel is meant only for ethnic Jews? Where does that leave “democracy?”

It is this culture of normalized racism which allows utterances made, for example, by the Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, possible: “We have abolished all the rules of war. Our soldiers will not be held responsible for anything. There will be no military courts.” Killing Palestinians is no crime, because (again the words of Mr. Gallant, and the irony of his surname is best left unexplored): “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

The “human animals” he is referring to is the 2.1 million (some say 2.3 million) Gazans, 50 percent of whom are children (under the age of 18). It is these children who are the vermin that need to be cleaned out so Israel can live in peace?

Interesting is it not, how deeply Israelis have imbibed the rhetoric once used against Jews during the time of Hitler and now they use it against the Arabs? Thus far, Mr. Gallant’s campaign has killed well over 7,000, of whom nearly half are children, as the Israelis try to imitate the fire-bombing of Dresden, which they regard as the gold standard in achievement in Gaza. Notice too that the term “Hamas” has been expanded to include all Gazans. Such slaughter is worth it, to use Ms. Albright’s rationale.

But despite superiority in weaponry, it is Hamas that is winning this war—because it has shown the world a very ugly side of Netanyahu’s Israel which has been well-hidden; or rather, ignored: the original inhabitants of Palestine are dehumanized to the point of slaughter, and current Israeli officialdom thinks racially and regards Palestinians as non-humans, as animals, which means that all brutality is therefore permissible. Such is the bastion of “civiliazation” in that region?

This dehumanization also makes a more sinister point—what’s the use of giving Palestinians their own country? They will only blow it up and then come after the Jews. Therefore, a two-state solution is a bust from the get-go. Or as the ever-boisterous Ben Shapiro once put it: “Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue.” His words are backed up by some top rabbis of Israel who have stated: “racism originated in the Torah.”

What the Gazans managed to build, despite Israeli hindrances and cruelty, deserves also to be remembered, and which must be compared to the hell that Israel has wrought there.

Perhaps it is time for the more sensible Jews to show a way to escape from the quickening cycle of hatred. Can Israel find another way to live in the region, other than through belligerence and defiance? Can it become more integrated as a Middle Eastern nation, rather than some imagined “crusader state?” Perhaps it is time at long last to begin cultivating goodwill that might lead to real peace, and to learn to share the land. But that would mean changing the entire Israeli power structure. What will eventually survive of Israel should hatred be allowed to achieve maximum destruction? Violence is a deadend.

C.B. Forde writes from rual Canada.

Justin Trudeau and the Banderites

A dimly lit hall. Enthusiastic crowd. A screechy harangue from the podium. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s association with Nazism was made manifest a second time!

Fresh from applauding a member of the 1st Galician Division of the Waffen SS in the Canadian Parliament, Trudeau gave a bizarre performance the following day, on September 23, 2023, at the Fort York Armoury, in Toronto.

More importantly, to his left hung a large banner.. It read in Cyrillic, ГЕРОЯМ СЛАВА (Heroyam, or Geroyam Slava), or “Glory to the Heroes!”

It’s a response to a Banderite (Nazi) call; the first part might be more familiar: СЛАВА УКРАЇНІ (Slava Ukraini), “Glory to Ukraine.” The response is, “Glory to the Heroes.”

This cry was popularized by none other than the Ukrainian Nazi, Stepan Bandera, and became his slogan. Both his organizations, the Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukraine Insurgent Army (UPA), allied with the Nazis, used this call-response and it is now closely identified only with them. Bandera established it as the “Ukrainian” version of the Nazi call-response, “Heil Hitler-Sieg Heil.”

We just need to recall that both the OUN and the UPA carried out many atrocities against Poles and Jews and the Roma and fellow Ukrainians, while the crimes of Bandera are legend, and need not be repeated here, as I have discussed all this earlier. Suffice to say that it is impossible to speak of modern Ukraine without the Nazis—current Ukrainian national life is saturated by Hitlerism.

Is PM Trudeau again going to say that he knew nothing about the banner hanging right before him? That Anthony Rota, the ex-Speaker of the House of Commons, made his way into the Armoury to hang it up? Or, more likely, in Trudeau’s mind, Putin did it?

What we are really witnessing is the barking of violent rhetoric, all justified by blurting out “Ukraine.” In other words, all manner of hatred can now be concealed by the “morality” of supporting Ukraine. This violence has become a habit of mind among all the Canadian and Western ruling elite—enthusiastically repeated by Trudeau, as this speech bears witness. This is why the members of the Canadian Parliament all stood, cheered and applauded the Nazi visiting them in House of Commons.

The Armoury performance by Trudeau was Hitlerian in delivery as well—the exaggerated gestures, the angry facial expressions, the modulated shouting (though truth be told, Hitler was better at all this than Trudeau can ever hope to be, despite his stint as a drama teacher); and then came the copium and the hopium—handing out $9 Billion is going to defeat Russia. Perhaps in a saner moment, Trudeau might want to ask himself how much winning from the Ukrainians the USA bought with $112 Billion (the real amount is likely a lot, lot more, since the Pentagon is hopeless at math)?

Worse was the applauding crowd before him, listening to his ranting (did all the 338 clappy, happy members of Parliament tag along?), and no one noticed the banner? Truth be told, it was sneaky, being in Cyrillic.

The Russophoba that Trudeau yelled out stems from the deeply neo-Nazi views of the Ukrainian regime in Kiev, and within Ukrainian society itself, which do not see Russians, or anyone East of them, as humans.

For example, on August 4, 2023, Aleksey Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, stated: “I’m fine with Asians, but Russians are Asians. They have a completely different culture, vision. Our key difference from them is humanity.” Ukrainians are humans, while Russians, because they are Asians, are not.

Then, on September 14, 2023, Zelensky’s top aide, Mikhail Podoliak, observed: “What’s wrong with India, China, and so forth? The problem is that they are not analyzing the consequences of their steps, these countries have weak intellectual potential, unfortunately… Yes, they invest in science. Yes, India has launched a lunar rover presently and is now trekking on the surface of the Moon, but that does not indicate that this country fully comprehends what the modern world is about… China should be interested in Russia disappearing, because it is an archaic nation that drags China into unnecessary conflicts… It would be in their interest now to distance themselves from Russia as far as possible, take all the resources it has, and take part of the Russian territory under their legal control. In fact, they will do that.” Again, Asians are racially inferior; and since Russians are Asians, ergo, etc.

On September 28, 2023, Vovan & Lexus, the brilliant Russian pranskters, posing as ex-President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, spoke with the transgender Ukraine ex-spokesman, Sarah Ashton-Cirillo (born Michael, now a creature no longer human; merely a “billboard” for Wokery), who very precisely and clearly stated what is commonly believed in Ukraine, because it is taught in their schools: “Russians are not Europeans… Russians are Asian, and ultimately, they do come from the Mongols. They do come from a grouping of people who want to be slaves and want to be led, just as it was from the days of Genghis Khan. I wish the rest of Europe and the Western world understood that Europe ends at Ukraine. We are protecting European values and Western values the same way those did hundreds and thousands of years ago when the Mongols came in…. Every Russian that supports Vladimir Putin’s decisions are not human. These people are not human. They are enemies of humanity, in fact… we’ve been asking the Western world since the days of your presidency, sir, to make certain they understood the threat of these non-humans” (transcript via KanekoaTheGreat).

These are the people Trudeau is paying $9 Billion to. These are the views that ground his own scream-fest: “…because the cost on Canadians, on our lives on our…(?) will be so much greater if Putin wins this war, we will and have to stand every single day until Ukraine wins this war.”

Ukrainians must win because they are humans; Russians are not. Notice the attempt at cleverness with the “cost” involved. If Russians win, they are going to “cost” Canada a lot more. How? Right now, it’s the Ukrainians who are costing Canadians $9 Billion, not the Russians. Rather than pointless gymnastics with economics, it is far easier to explain Trudeau’s words as an extension of Ukrainian Russophobia. For Trudeau, people like Danilov, Podoliak and Ashton-Cirillo must win, because these people can build a better world, a world that he can truly believe in. And he’s ready to put his tax-payers’ money where his mouth is.

Far more sinisterly, it’s better to pay Ukrainians to go and die so that Putin can be defeated (the only goal of the West), rather than send out Canadian troops to get the job done (laugh track, please).

Ukrainians are defending “democracy” and “our values” (Danilov, Podoliak and Ashton-Cirillo), so we don’t have to fight for both over here—and therefore the money we give them is the “best defense investment ever made,” since the Ukrainians are more than happy to die for “us.” You see, the more Ukrainians that die, the more democratic and freer we become. How much Ukrainian blood is your “freedom” worth—just ask yourself. Put another way, how many Ukrainians will Trudeau’s $9 Billion kill? How many Russians? What will Trudeau have really bought?

As noted, Trudeau’s words are an extention of Ukrainian Russophobia that in turn stems from the false assumption of racial superiority, which has been taught in Ukrainian schools for many decades: that Western Ukrainians are racially and linguistically completely different because they are direct descendents of Vikings and therefore Germanic and therefore superior. This myth was cultivated by Banderites in order to endear themselves to the Nazis (it never worked, as the Nazis rightly knew them to be only Slavs, while the Ukrainians went overboard to show assumed “Germanic” kinship, especially when it came to brutality, which often astonished even the Nazis).

More bizarely, versions of this myth are constantly repeated in all of Western media, including independent (sane) media, where Eastern Ukraine is always called “ethnically Russian,” a meaningless term which only strengthens Ukrainian self-aggrandizing racial fables. All Ukrainians are “ethnically Russian.” There are no other kind.

The truth is that the Ukrainian language (previously, and correctly, known as “Little Russian” or Ruthenian) is best understood as a dialect of Russian, therefore firmly and only Slavic. Russian and Ukrainian today are mutually intelligible. Ukrainian is not a Germanic language; no part of it is. It has no Germanic traces; no vestige of Old Norse, the language of the Vikings. In other words, the Vikings left no trace in the Ukrainian language (unlike English, for example, which is richly marked by Old Norse, as is Norman French). Nor is there any Viking (Germanic) DNA to be found among modern-day Western Ukrainians (who claim to be Viking descendents). They are all purely Slavic like their Eastern kinsmen whom they despise for being racially inferior Asians (Russians). Ironically, for these Western Ukrainians, Russians proper have greater racial kinship with Germans than they do. So, it would seem Western Ukrainians deeply hate themselves and take this hatred out on Russians in order to “feel” superior. A variant dialect has been mythologized into a “racial difference;” and, sadly, it is this mythology that is the ideological fuel driving the war being waged by the Kiev regime.

And it is this muddled Banderite mentality that Trudeau wants to win. For him, Banderites embody the “truth” that he can back with other people’s money. This is the world that all of the West is supporting with its money and arms. Why should the Russians, therefore, not see this conflict in Ukraine as the West’s new Operation Barbarossa?

Do we still need to wonder where Nazism is thriving the most in Canada? It is thriving among people like Trudeau and the entire ruling class that stood clapping and adoring an old Waffen SS veteran, because their minds find affinity with the Nazis when it comes to Ukraine, since the entire Western endeavor is founded upon Russophobia, upon a deep racial difference (Russians are not Europeans); and because the West is indeed engaged in a war to annihilate Russians. The longer this war goes on, the more Nazi Canada and the West will become. This is the same Cold War mindset that forgave the Nazis everything because they made good allies against the new enemy, the Russians.

But this overwrought exhibition by Trudeau is also best viewed for what it is—alongside the brilliance of Charlie Chaplin’s Adenoid Hynkel, because Charlie knew how to skewer such types.

So, here’s to Justin Adenoid Hynkel, who can’t seem to get enough of the Nazis… Geroyam Slava, Mr. Prime Minister!

C.B. Forde writes from rual Canada.

Hunkagate, or How “Inglourious Basterds” Eat Crow

Note to self: The Nazis are no longer the bad guys, the Russians are.

So, why is it so surprising that Justin Trudeau honored a former Waffen SS veteran (Yaroslav Hunka), in parliament, on September 22, 2023? There is no point in insulting our own intelligence by even considering that it was solely the fault of one man (Anthony Rota), and no one else even knew what Rota was up to. The fact is, Canada has long protected and nurtured Ukrainian Nazis and many other extremists. It is a venerable Canadian tradition.

As well, it is also a long tradition that Ukrainians very closely police their history, to make sure that their Nazism is played down, and Russia’s is always vilified. So, Mr. Trudeau’s honoring of Hunka is the way things are done in Canada. Hunka was honored back in 2007, by the Canadian Congress of Ukrainians, which is closely associated with Mr. Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland, his Deputy Prime Minister and Canada’s Minister of Finance:

So, the whole drama of never knowing who Hunka is, that he was foisted upon the well-meaning, unsuspecting parliamentarians by Rota is simply false. The man was moving about a lot in government circles.

This honoring of a Ukrainian and Canadian “hero” appears to be carefully scripted to please the neo-Nazis in Ukraine who are the real powers broker in that sad country. Hunka was Trudeau’s bowing to that power.

As well, it is an old custom among Ukrainian nationalists to mitigate the Nazis and deflect to Russia as evil. This is something that the West has been doing ever since the war in Ukraine began, where it has become an attempt to rewrite history: not all Nazis were bad, while all Russians are evil, always have been and are the natural enemy of mankind, ever since Adam and Co wended their way east of Eden.

This sort of re-imagining of history has been done before (and successfully) with ancient Egypt, which has been transformed into a sub-Saharan (Bantu) civilization, which it most certainly never was. In the same way, the Nazis are being re-imagined as fighters against the Russians, the new bad guys.

Mr. Trudeau’s honoring of Hunka was mirrored later in Mr. Anthony Blinken’s recent Tweet, in which he mentioned the slaughter at Babiy Yar—in order to vilify Russia. Here is what he said:

The Nazis are being erased from atrocities so that Russians can be photo-shopped in, because the past is fluid, like gender. Therefore, like Mr. Trudeau, Mr. Blinken must de-emphasize the truth of history in order to traduce the Russians—even though it was Ukrainian Nazis (men like Hunka) who played an integral role in the slaughter at Babiy Yar.

Maria Zakharova, representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, gave the perfect response to all this re-imagining:

Anthony Blinken allowed himself to lie about one of the most horrific tragedies of the Second World War: the execution of the civilian population of Soviet Kyiv on September 29-30, 1941 in the Babi Yar tract. Then the Nazis, having occupied the territory of the city, began “cleansing” operations. Within a few days, tens of thousands of Jews, Gypsies, and Soviet prisoners of war were killed. On the 29th and 30th alone, the German fascists brutally literally destroyed 34 thousand people – this is exactly what Blinken remembered, cynically lying (more about this below) about the memory of this tragedy in the USSR, and also “forgetting” that executions continued until the liberation of Kiev by the Red Army in November 1943.

Also, on September 20, 2023, Ursula von der Leyen gave a speech to the Atlantic Council, in which she indulged in the same re-imagining of history:

Distinguished guests, there is a Japanese proverb that tells a lot about the country and about its prime minister. It says onkochishin and it means “explore the past to learn new things.” You, dear Prime Minister, showed me the meaning of this proverb during the G7 summit in Japan last year. You brought us to your hometown of Hiroshima, the place where you have your roots and which has deeply shaped your life and leadership. Many of your relatives lost their life when the atomic bomb razed Hiroshima to the ground. You have grown up with the stories of the survivors. And you wanted us to listen to the same stories, to face the past, and learn something about the future.

It was a sobering start to the G7, and one that I will not forget, especially at a time when Russia threatens to use nuclear weapons once again. It is heinous. It is dangerous. And in the shadow of Hiroshima, it is unforgivable.

Onkochishin, indeed. “Russia threatens to use nuclear weapons once again.” This time the USA has been erased and Russia photo-shopped in. In Ms. von der Leyen’s mind, the Russians dropped two bombs on Japan, and we cannot let them do that again, can we. And the USA comes out smelling like a proverbial rose, like the Ukrainians. This is not historical revisionism at all, but a complete erasing the recent past, all played out for a public that is brainwashed by Hollywood as per fare like Inglourious Basterds.

Returning to our “hero,” notice how carefully he was scriped: seated, front-and-center in the gallery where all could easily see him. Notice the Canadian army officers, smiling and clapping (impossible that even they knew no Canadian history).

The careful packaging of Hunka is also evident in the introduction that the now ex-Speaker of the House, Anthony Rota, gave before the yappy seals, aka, members of Parliament. Here’s the script that he was handed, and which, to his great credit, he read very awkwardly. These were not words that he was not comfortable with, but was forced to perform them:

We have here in the Chamber today a Ukrainian-Canadian World… veteran, from the Second World War, who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians, and continues to support the troops today, at the venerable age of 98 (spontaneous standing ovation and cheering). His name is Yaroslav Hunka. And I was going to say that he’s in the gallery, but I think you beat me to that (self-congratulatory laughter). But I am very proud to say that he is from North Bay and from my riding of Nipissing-Timiskaming (more applause). He’s a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service. Thank you. (More applause).

The official state propagandists, the CBC, blithely reported that while Zelensky’s “speech received at least a dozen standing ovations. There was also one for this man (a shot of Hunka sitting in the gallery), a 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians during the Second World War” (CBC News). Notice the same careful scripting: dim the Nazis and in order to asperse the Russians.

And this packaging nearly worked. Who wouldn’t feel grateful to a 98-year-old war veteran? And the general public wouldn’t even know when World War Two happened.

Enter Warren Thornton, in Britian. It was he who first noticed as to what had happened in the Canadian Parliament. He just pointed out the obvious: in World War Two, the only ones fighting the Russians were the Nazis and their ilk, because the Russians (or Soviets at that time) were “our” allies. Ergo, Hunka could not be anything other than a Nazi.

Unwittingly backing up Mr. Thornton was AP, which non-chalantly noted that Hunka had been a member of the “First Ukrainian Division.” Sounds harmless enough and armyish, as befits a veteran. AP just threw this bit of information out there, confident that their readers would nary blink an eyelid.

Those who know a little about such things will immediately spot the problem: “First Ukrainian Division” was a later name for the 1st Galician Division , or the 14th Grenadiers of the Waffen SS. The Division had a lackluster career as a fighting Nazi unit, and it was involved in various atrocities, largely against Poles, Jews and other Ukrainians.

Back in the day, there was also much controvery when these Ukronazis were brought into Canada in the late 1940s and 1950s; for various reasons, the government supported and protected them (the Cold War, in which Nazis were now friends and the Russians the enemy). With great loyalty, Canada has always protected Ukrainian Nazis. For example, in 1986, a Commission, looking into the “alleged” crimes of the 1st Galician, concluded: “If the only allegation against a resident of Canada is that he was a member of the Galicia Division that is not an individual which we consider should be made the subject of an investigation by your Commission. If the allegation is that while he was a member of the Division, he committed atrocities at such-and-such a place, if there is evidence of the committing of atrocities alleged in the information which was conveyed to us, then that person becomes of interest to your Commission.”

The logic of this conclusion is still prevalent, where simply being a member of the Waffen SS does not automatically make you a criminal. Crime has to be proven first, since we all know that the majority of the SS were just regular guys doing doing charity work. And the Banderite stalwarts at the BBC agree: “The Galicia Division has been accused of committing war crimes, but its members have never been found guilty in a court of law.” So, there. What’s the problem of honoring a Waffen SS veteran? They were doing great work in Europe against the Russians, and they still are!

Back in Britian, Mr. Thornton was rewarded for all his hard work by being promptly arrested for spreading “malinformation.” This is information that is true but which the government feels can cause “harm.” So, British authorities were busy protecting Hunka, since we can’t have anyone maligning the Nazis, can we? Thankfully, Mr. Thornton was released because he hung tough.

Having been caught in the ensuing ruckus that Mr. Thornton started, the Canadian MPs, including Mr. Trudeau, gave vent to all manner of condemnation—of an event that they themselves planned and implemented, and in which they themselves enthusiastically participated.

Video evidence clearly shows that they were all applauding—including Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party (and all his MPs) and Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the lefty New Democratic Party (and all his MPs), and of course Trudeau and all his crowd.

In fact, all 338 MPs (no matter what their affiliation) were on their feet applauding Hunka of the SS, who, it must be said, rather masterfully controlled his instinct to give a “proper” salute from the balcony, and went instead with a raised, clenched fist.

Yarosalv Hunka in the Canadian parliament (September 22, 2023).

And this same Mr. Poilievre, now so outraged, had this to say to Christine Anderson of the German AfD, who was visiting Canada back in February 2023: “Frankly, it would be better if Anderson never visited Canada in the first place. She and her racist, hateful views are not welcome here.”

But Mr. Poilievre gave Hunka two standing ovations, because Hunka’s “racist, hateful views” are perfectly welcome, and belong in Canada’s House of Commons, since they are against a common enemy (Russia). Like Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Singh (the less said about him, the better), Mr. Poilievre understands perfectly which side his globalist bread is buttered on.

The concerted outrage came two days late and a dollar short, because it was so convenient and thus contrived.

Why did all these now-outraged MPs not loudly boo and hiss the presence of Hunka on September 22nd? Why did none of them angrily storm out of the chamber? Why did none of them refuse to stand up? Why did none of them refuse to clap? Why did none of them denounce Hunka precisely when Rota introduced him? Why only after Mr. Thornton’s revelations? Only when their gamble failed, for they were rightly counting on the public’s ignorance. Notice it was only Mr. Thornton who noticed. No one else.

The Government House Leader, Karina Gould, explained what truly, truly (honestly) happened:

Mr. Speaker, like all members of this chamber, I am incredibly disappointed in the fact that this individual was invited, as you yourself, Mr. Speaker, have confirmed by you, was recognized in the gallery. I found out just like every other member in this house at that time that this individual was present. This is deeply embarrassing for us as parliamentarians, as Canadians, and it is something that I think all of us take extremely seriously, and I would ask my honorable colleagues not to politicize this moment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker… Mr. Speaker as a descendant of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, I am personally very hurt by the fact that this chamber recognized this individual, and I am sure that everyone feels the same way in this chamber. The Parliamentary Protective Service had the appropriate screening in place to ensure the security of last Friday’s event and that is what I was referring to. Mr. Speaker. But what I can continue to say is that we all must take this seriously because it is hurting many communities.

Translation:

Look. We’re all guilty as Hell. We all clapped like trained seals. But since we’re all birds of a feather, let’s put this behind us, and let’s just stop talking about it, and soon the Great Unwashed will forget that any of this ever happened. Why pee and pooh in the trough where we all feed. The more you talk about this, the more Putin wins. Is that what you really want? Let’s move on and do what we’re really here to do, which is to bring about the New World Order. Besides, can you imagine what it’s going to be like for me at my synagogue now? Have a heart. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Her claim of not knowing who Hunka is, is very odd, since there is a selfie of her warmly clutching Hunka’s hand and smiling with much joy (a selfie that she has since deleted… and which is now being scrubbed from the Internet, so we’re saving it). Ms. Gould’s Jewishness was not an issue at the time of the selfie.

Can anyone still argue with a straight face that there are no Nazis in Ukraine because Zelensky is a Jew?

And if Ms. Gould is now so upset, why not simply resign? In fact, the entire 338 members of Parliament should resign—starting with Trudeau, and they all should never be allowed to set foot inside the Parliament buildings again. They have thoroughly sullied them.

Karina Gould, a relative of Mr. Hunka, Anthony Rota, Mr. Hunka (seated).

Later, Ms. Gould introduced a motion to strike Hunka from the parliamentary records—to wash the slate clean; nothing happened. Zelensky came, we gve him tons of cash, and he left. Yawn. Cancel culture is a Canadian “value.” And how quiet is Zelelnsky about all this…

Another egregious example of this outrage is one Ya’ara Saks, a Liberal MP from a Toronto riding, and who is also Jewish. Back when the Truckers’ Protest was labeled a “Nazi-rally” by Trudeau, Ms. Saks (a Trudeau stalwart), angrily stood up in parliament and declared that when truckers honked their horns, it actually meant “Hail Hitler.”

So, what does Ms. Saks applauding (thrice) for Hunka actually mean for Ms. Saks? There are other MPs who are Jews (including Melissa Lantzman, a Conservative)—all of them applauded. Only after being exposed are they now outraged. Ah, yes, Jews can’t be Nazis.

Some context: Back in April 7, 2022, Zelensky was invited to speak, via video, to the Greek parliament. Part of his speech included exhortations by two members of the neo-Nazi Azov battalion. All the Greek parliamentarians at once condemned what Zelensky had done, since he had foisted Nazis upon them without forewarning. They did not applaud and did not take two days to be outraged.

Why did the Canadian parlimentarians not behave this way? In fact, why did Zelensky say nothing; instead he was fist-pumping and beaming, since he knows who keeps him in power; or rather who holds him hostage.

One might wonder, why was this done? The official version—it was entirely Rota’s doing, and Hunka is from his riding. And, dutifully, Rota assumed the posture of the scapegoat, apologized and resigned (doubtless he will be amply rewarded down the road). Of course, had Trudeau and his MPs known what Rota was up to, they would have kiboshed the whole thing at once, because Mr. Trudeau’s moral compass is second to none when it comes to spotting Nazis, especially among people he dislikes.

But this “defense,” this evocation of ignorance by all 338 MPs, just does not wash. Rota very clearly announced what he was about to do—and only then did all 338 of them leap to their feet in Russophobic zealotry, and before Rota could even finish the introduction proper, which even he found a tad surprising: “You beat me to that.” What, a Ukrainian “freedom fighter” battling the evil Russians from long ago, living right here in Canada? Huzzah!

This appeal to ignorance is given the lie by a photo, taken by a granddaughter of Hunka’s, in which she explains that he is waiting to meet both Zelensky and Trudeau. Who are we to believe? Trudeau or the rather innocent remark of granddaughter? What a tough choice!

The image in full, in case the photo also disappears:

But then, the Nazis and the Trudeaus are old acquaintances. His father (Pierre Eliot), during the Second World War, rode around on a motorbike wearing a Nazi helmet to stick it to the Anglos, since their war against Hitler was not his war. And the current Deputy Prime Minister (the eminence grise behind Justin), Chrystia Freeland, her grandfather ran a pro-Nazi newspaper in Ukraine during those years in which Hunka was a “hero.” And her uncle (Myroslav Shkandrij) has just published a book defending the actions of the 1st Galician Division and whitewashing all their atrocities as “unstantiated,” unproven in any court of law (see BBC above), and therefore claims of Ukrainian brutality are nothing but… you guessed it, “Russian propaganda.”

In Trudeau’s Canada, the government has also been busy removing and, yes, destroying statues that might be reminders of the many achievements of Old Stock Canadians—but try defacing a monument to Roman Shukhevych, the man deeply involved in the Holocaust in Ukraine, and you will be arrested and charged. There are various Ukronazi monuments in Canada, a country in which 4 percent of the population is of Ukrainian origin: after the Second World War, 45,000 Ukrainians were brought into the country, and many thousands of these were from disbanded Nazi units.

Trudeau’s affinity for Nazsim gets darker yet. Why does he believe that to say there are Nazis in Ukraine is Russian propaganda? In his visit to Ukraine, in June 2023, he met with Andrij Melnyk, who is the lead proponent of this school of thought, where history must be reimagined in order to malign the Russians and who has famously said: “That is the narrative [Nazi-Ukraine] that the Russians are pushing to this day, and that has support in Germany, in Poland, and also in Israel.” History is just a narrative. History has no facts. From his actions in Parliament and elsewhere, it would seem that is is also what Mr. Trudeau believes.

Mr. Trudeau further echoed Melnyk when he came out in his own defense in Hunkagate: “It’s going to be really important that all of us push back against Russian propaganda, Russian disinformation, and continue our steadfast and unequivocal support for Ukraine.” We will soon discover that it was the Russians who brought Hunka to the House of Commons; it was the Russians who forced Mr. Trudeau to clap and nod his head approvingly; it was the Russians that forced all 338 MPs to jump to their feet and applaud wildly. The depth of Russian connivance knows no bounds, but they’re also weak and stupid.

This statement by Trudeau is also a directive to the Canadian legacy media, which he richly funds. He is tellng them to now drop the whole matter, bury the story and move on. If you keep repeating this story, you are working for Putin. Many have gotten the message: “Canada just made Vladimir Putin’s day, a chance for him to try to claim he’s fighting Nazis in Ukraine, an idea dismissed as nonsense by most of the world but a favourite topic of the Russian leader” (Rick Bell, Calgary Sun). Notice the lie, which is not even subtle… “dismissed as nonsense by most of the world.” Amazing how one reporter, in one Canadian newspaper, can speak with authority for “most of the world.” Ignorance—the most vital ingredient for success in propaganda.

So, the message to the legacy media is that if you keep repeating this story, you will prove Putin right—Ukraine does indeed have a serious and deep-seated Nazi problem. Stay on narrative… In Mr. Trudeau’s world, the only Nazis are the Trucker Protestors, and anyone else who disagrees with him. Therefore, “honk-honk” really does mean, “Hail Hitler,” and it’s OK for a Jew to clutch a Nazi’s hand for a heart-warming selfie. This is why Hunka is a Canadian hero—for the real enemy of Canada is not the Nazis, they never were; it’s the Russians. The jig might be up for Hunka as Poland wants him extradited for crimes his Division committed there. But Hunka need not worry. Canada will never extradict him.

And by the time elections come around (2025), all this will be long forgotten, and Canadians will once again blithely vote for the Uniparty agenda: climate change and gender equality. Hunka can live out his days in peace. But who will speak for the victims of his SS Division?

In the meantime, in the words of Melnyk:

C.B. Forde lives in a small community, in Ontario, Canada.

Ukraine, or Hatred as Virtue

The conflict in the Ukraine has brought unexpected clarity to the meshwork of contradictions that bestrew the so-called “civilized.” The West breathlessly presents itself as “righteous” and “good,” while very little inside it can still be described as such: “whitewashed tombs” (Matthew 23:27).

For example:

  • The law has been unhinged entirely from actions once deemed criminal. Children are avidly and maliciously taught sexual perversions in schools, even to the destruction of their own bodies, while actions once thought criminal are simply “reparations” and therefore never to be punished.
  • Transvestitism has become a great campaign to rewrite humanity itself.
  • Anti-white racism is now the “normal” Western habit of mind.
  • Mass immigration has destroyed indigenous Western populations, despite the West’s rhetoric of care for indigeneity.
  • Deindustrialization has transitioned into defarming so that food can cease being abundant.
  • The age-old anti-Catholic assumptions have expanded into a total war against the last vestiges of Christianity, the foundational moral-structure of the now atheistic West.
  • Economics, once designed to sustain and expand human welfare, is now a tool to destroy it.
  • Culture, which once housed the strength of Western values, is now a tool to destroy them.
  • “Human rights,” “freedom,” “democracy” are empty phrases, repeated piously, while nothing in present-day Western society suggests that these qualities actually exist.
  • The traditional understanding of technology as a helpmate of humanity has become a method for its control, and even its destruction.
  • Care for nature has veered into anti-natalism and the hatred of humanity itself.
  • Truth is no longer needed, since the lie serves far more important purposes and constructs.

The project of the West is no longer to expand the benefits of civilization, but to destroy civilization so that a new world may be born, in which there are only as many humans as needed. This is known as “progress” and is the very lifeblood of the West today.

A single thread unites all these progressive efforts—the lie, and the chief attribute of the lie is hatred. Those that deny the lie must be hated. One becomes virtuous in the West by proudly hating what is supposed to be hated. The government marks for the public what and who is to be hated and loved. And the people, with the help of the media-education-entertainment complex suitable adapt their emotions, and express outrage or approval as mandated. Such manipulation is no longer subtle; it is in-your-face, because the public has been lied to for so very long that they can no longer understand subtlety. They demand coarseness—the more vulgar, the better.

The conflict in Ukraine, among many other things, is one such Western construct, a glossography, where lies and hatred exquisitely intertwine. Russia is to be lied about and openly hated—because Russia is the government-approved “enemy,” and dutifully all the gourmands of hatred try to outvie each other to see who can spew the vilest of hate against the “enemy.” This competition has strongly united nations and populations. How do I hate thee, let me count the ways…

The examples of such pharisaical expressions are now dime-a-dozen and easily found, even in the most unexpected of places. Examples of Western Russophobia are endless, and there is little point in repeating them, from the never-ending rounds of sanctions against Russia (round 11 is now being packaged), to Zelensky of Ukraine prohibiting Russian books form being published or imported into his country, lest the purity of his nation be destroyed by contact with Russian, to some rich author canceling her own book because it was thoughtlessly, horror of horrors, set in Russia. Or, just ordinary folk letting off a bit of steam.

But the honor of uttering the foulest venom must go to Andrzej Duda, the president of Poland. Needless to say, the government of Poland specializes in fomenting rancor against Russia—it feels that this is its God-given role now in the world—to make the world realize just how beastly and evil Russians are. Such is the divine mission of Polish politicians, and they certainly revel in it.

On June 23, 2023, for example, in an interview given to a Ukrainian TV Channel (Espreso), Duda dropped these gems of wisdom:

“Russia cannot be allowed to win because it will continue to advance. This will support its imperialism. It is like a wild beast that will eat a human being. If a wild beast eats a human being, it is usually said that it should be hunted down and shot because it is used to eating human flesh. The same with Russia.”

Such sphinxian knowledge Polish politicians, like him, alone possess:

“Perhaps the West does not understand this, but we know it very well.” To clarify: “it” being Russia, the man-eating beast.

Just replace “it” with… say… “Israel” and see what happens, as you’re hauled off to jail, in any “free” and “democratic” Western country, for hate-speech. But Russia. No problem. Say what you like. All hatred is acceptable. Knock yourself out. Your government expects you to hate Russia. If you don’t—there’s something seriously wrong with you, and more than likely you’re a Putin agent. I won’t mention the Two Minutes Hate à la 1984. Duda is the Virgil of our age, in an anti-Divine-Comedy of his own contrivance, his pansophical finger pointing out the nine-levels of depravity of the Russian beast. Quite the calling!

You see, Russia is the new “infidel” that must be routed and annihilated. Only a Russia-less world can be truly “free” and “democratic.”

But before long, Duda remembered that he was the president of some country or other, and shoved in a tad of lawyer-gibberish, to give himself that air of authority:

“This is a necessary condition [killing the man-eating beast] for a successful and just end to this war. What should it be? At least in such a way as to restore the supremacy of international law. International law will be restored when Russia is pushed out of all occupied lands in Ukraine.”

Murdering an entire nation is justice, and the only way this war in Ukraine can end “justly” is when Russia is killed off, like a rabid beast. What’s mass murder among Western friends? It’s all to restore “the supremacy of international law,” after all. Nothing wrong with that at all, is there?

And then Duda catches himself, with an olive branch to any Ukrainian peacenik that might be listening to the Espreso interview (there must be such a creature, somewhere in Ukraine. Rara avis, no doubt and seldom sighted, but there must be one. A hint to birders). Duda suggests that the death-blow should not be quick and painless. Oh no. That would be anticlimactic and therefore disappointing. He has readied the scarpines for Putin. Yes, indeed:

“We must make sure that we, together with Ukraine, tire Russian society and torture Putin.”

But then Duda knows a thing or two about torture, given how you get treated in Polish prisons, so that the penal system needs a regular check-up.

On a side note, in order to hate Russia properly, you also have to show excessive love for Ukraine, and especially for Zelensky. Is this why every Western leader that meets him has to hug him, and look longingly into his eyes and just hug him again. There’s a lot of homoerotism going on with Zelensky; but then Zelensky is used to such affection.

This is why, Duda had to come out of the closet at last and let it all hang out:

“President Zelensky and I love each other, but we are involved in politics.”

And once politics is done, look out world!

This would explain the special hugs reserved for his great love.

One can only hope that one day the good people of Poland will wake up and refuse to be led by such crackpots. But that is an awakening that needs to happen throughout the West. We’re all sick and tired of our leaders. Maybe Duda was actually on to something about how to treat man-eating beasts…

C.B. Forde is a full-time farmer and part-time reader of books, even those suggested to him, at times, by his wife.

The Colonel’s Coup of Yevgeny Prigozhin

Two days that were supposed to shake Russia. In reality, it was just a fizzle. In the final hours of Friday June 23rd and most of Saturday June 24th, 2023, the now erstwhile leader of the Wagner Military Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, started an armed revolt, which he called a “march for justice,” to settle things, once and for all, over a long-brewing feud with the Russian army (represented by Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and Deputy Commander of the Russian Joint Forces, General Valery Gerasimov). Very quickly, it became something else, with Prigozhin leading his men to Moscow, with the vague purpose of having it out with his supposed tormentors. Along the way, Prigozhin put out various videos, in which he even threatened Putin, saying that Russia would soon have a new president. It was what is known as a “colonel’s coup,” in which a faction in the army tries to carry out a coup d’état. More on that later.

Russophobes of the West had a field day. Here, at last was the decisive event they had been waiting for—to finally “prove” their endlessly repeated mantra that Putin is a weak, cruel tyrant, vicariously perched atop a seething, resentful population; all that was really needed was a push to bring down the whole wretched house of cards known as the “Russian Federation.” Prigozhin was going to be that much-awaited push. Just wait and see what happens. Western punditry was on the side of truth, etc. Before long, rumors abounded: Putin had “fled” Moscow (true to stereotypical Western narratives about tyrants); the “seething” population was going to burst out into the streets in their millions. The hero of Bakhmut—would be the “savior” of Russia. Imagine, Prigozhin was now the new “hero” of the West, the man everyone once loved to hate.

Prigozhin, therefore, dutifully declared that the Wagnerites were being greeted on the streets as “liberators” by ordinary Russians and offered candy. The “oppressed” Russians were seizing the chance given them. It wouldn’t be long before governors, mayors, and then the army itself would pledge their allegiance to Prigozhin. Flowers would be strewn in front of the Wagnerite convoy on the M-4 highway, pretty girls would happily kiss the Musicians (as Wagner group members are called), old men would pass around shots of vodka. A Putin-less Russia at long last.

True to form, President Zelensky was quick to get in front of a camera and record a video, in which he piled on all the morality tropes imaginable about how “evil men” end up. This self-projection was a gleeful description of what awaited President Putin. Zelensky could barely conceal his snarl, and in the process rather perfectly exemplified Tucker Carlson’s description of him (Tucker on Twitter, Episode 1), as “…sweaty and rat-like, a comedian turned oligarch, a persecutor of Christians, a friend of Blackrock… our shifty, dead-eyed friend in the tracksuit.” Earlier Tucker had referred to him as a “strip club manager.”

But what was Prigozhin doing? Carrying out a coup? A putsch? An insurrection? A protest? Or something else? Let’s clarify our terminology first. A coup (short for coup d’etat) is the overthrow of a government by various means, usually violent. A putsch, on the other hand, is the attempt at bringing about a revolution and usually involves street riots. An insurrection is a rising up against the government. A protest is largely a public condemnation of a government measure.

So, what was Prigozhin engaged in? Before answering this important question, there are a few more considerations.

Why would a hero, who decisively defeated NATO (the collective West) at Bakhmut—no mean feat— and who vaunted his patriotism throughout the fighting, now suddenly choose to become a traitor? Simply because of a personal gripe with two Russian authority figures? A gripe that could have been more readily settled via a face-to-face meeting? But if so, why threaten President Putin? Why the grand drama of pretending to seize a building in Rostov-on-Don, where they just parked a tank (no, the entire city was not captured by the Wagnerites, nor was the city of Voronezh)? Why the crazy decision to try to drive all the way up to Moscow, which in army vehicles is easily a 20-hour stretch? And what about gas for the vehicles? Food for the men? It now appears likely that President Putin knew what Prigozhin was up to but allowed him to begin the long drive North, likely to wear him and his men out. The best way to diffuse the situation. This speaks volumes about self-control on the President’s part, as he could have easily bombed the Wagnerite entourage to kingdom come. But he chose a better route—negotiation and diplomacy. Not violence. This defeats the “tyrant” narratives spun about him. On the other, just look what the United States is doing to the January 6th protestors—unrelenting vindictiveness and cruelty. And remember Trudeau with the Trucker Convoy? Wonder who the tyrants really are?

Now, if Prigozhin was simply leading a protest, like the Truckers’ Convoy in Canada, why come fully armed? If it was simply a disagreement among fellow Russian citizens, what is weaponry supposed to accomplish? It would appear that, at this stage, Prigozhin did not want dialogue—but something else.

Then, there are the problematic things that Prigozhin said: that if Putin did not go along with him, Russia would be getting a new president; that the Ukrainians are killing a lot of Russians and gaining a lot of territory; that there were no supplies, no ammo; that the whole Russian army is corrupt and led by drunken incompetents; that officialdom is lying about the Ukraine and about the war. If true, Prigozhin never provided any evidence for what he asserted. It’s all he said, they said. If he had insider information, and given his lack of emotional control, he could have slapped down some sort of hard evidence to prove his case once and for all and shut up his detractors. Without any sort of proof, it seemed like he was repeating Western-NATO-Ukrainian talking-points. Some have suggested that he was shell-shocked and not all there mentally. This can be hard to prove from video evidence, nor was he doing any hand-to-hand combat with Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut.

These questions demand explanation of some sort, because it is difficult to ignore them. And the explanation can follow three main paths at the present moment. Everything might change, when more information emerges, of course.

First, what began as a personal gripe against Shoigu and Gerasimov quickly became the assertion of personal ambition, the logic of which came to the only conclusion possible when Prigozhin said Russia will have a new president. Why would he say such a thing? Was it bravura? Or something far more sinister? Motivations of people are never simple to map. Was Prigozhin now on a grand mission of giving Russia someone better in himself?

In the West, there is also the long-running assumption that Russian society is brittle and fragile, because it is held together solely by fear of unimaginable cruelty routinely practiced by Putin. The logic of this assumption goes thus: Give people a chance to get out from under this cruelty and Russia’s your oyster. If the people are with you, who can be against you? But were the people ever with Prigozhin, popular as he is, as a replacement for President Putin? There’s the rub.

Second, it would appear that underlying the personal gripe was the Great Game, a version of the old one—to styme and then conquer Russia. In other words, regime change—and all those “color revolutions” that have left utter misery in their wake. It is the Great Game that drives the current war in the Ukraine. The masters of this Game are the collective West, whose ideological leaders are the Kagan clan who have rather deftly captured the foreign policy of the United States, and now of the entire West, where the hegemonic dreams of a “new world order” yet hold sway.

Though this second sort of explanation does clarify motivation and ambition, for his actions would seem to indicate that Prigozhin wanted to be more than just a war hero. According to some astute observers, like Scott Ritter, Prigozhin had gone over to the dark side and was working with the British MI6 and the SBU (the Security Service of Ukraine), and his “protest” was merely the opening gambit in the Great Game. This would explain why Prigozhin began to spout Western talking points more and more often, while holding himself out to be a patriot, and why he spoke of regime change.

Accordingly, was Prigozhin being primed to replace Putin as president? The Kagans have long hated Putin and sought his demise. They want to possess Russia and divide it up into smaller countries, all ruled by them. Therefore, the West has always done everything it can to remove Putin, no matter how much brutality, misery and violence this “virtuous” act might bring the Russian people. It’s all “worth it,” in the infamous words of Madeline Albright.

Therefore, say the Kaganites, we need to remove Putin so that Russians can at last be “free,” and Russia can at last join the great concert of “democratic” nations, where political opposition is silenced for hate speech, where protests lead to serious jail time, where elections are hacked, where political opponents are destroyed by lawfare, where ordinary people get into the habit of censoring themselves before speaking and who are afraid of their neighbors. Yes, that Western “freedom” and “democracy.”

The Kaganites next believe that the West just needs to dangle a bit of “freedom” and the Russians, who have been long oppressed, will jump at the chance, like an all-you-can-eat buffet thrown open to the starving. Does this explain Prigozhin’s curious remark that the Wagnerites were being hailed as “liberators” and offered candies? (Victoria Nuland and her cookies in 2014). Or was that simply an indication of the popularity that he and the Wagnerites enjoy in the larger Russian population? One constant theme in Prigozhin’s complaint videos is his undying love for Russia, the Motherland, the Fatherland. But many other Russians are angry at Prigozhin.

This leads into the third possibility: Prigozhin the patriot. His action was, as he says, a protest against what he perceived as incompetence, embodied in Shoigu and Gerasimov. His march on Moscow was not rebellion, a coup, a putsch, nor an insurrection. It was a method to bring attention to a larger problem—that of “war fatigue.” There are many in Russia who feel that President Putin has been far too soft and gentle with the Zelensky regime, and they want a massive assault on the Ukraine to bring a quick end to that regime and to the war itself. Stop pussy-footing around, is what Prigozhin wanted to tell President Putin.

If this is what happened, then Prigozhin sacrificed himself in order to save Russia. From the very beginning, Zelensky has successfully demanded Wunderwaffen from the West and he has been given whatever he has asked for. There are various lists of everything that Zelensky has been given, including the much-vaunted Leopard (Panzer) tanks and Patriot missiles and soon F16 fighter jets. Needless to say, the constant demand for weapons by Zelensky has also exhausted the West, which is suffering another sort of “war fatigue”—it has emptied its coffers and really has nothing left to give, other than the last Wunderwaffe: the nuclear option.

Was Prigozhin worried that if this war drags on much longer, Zelensky, in his desperation, will set off a “dirty bomb” or attack the Zaporizhia nuclear plant and then blame it all on Russia? Such a false flag would be swallowed wholesale by the West for whom Zelensky is the noblest hero imaginable—and then this false flag would eagerly be used to attack Russia with nuclear missiles. Given the divorce from reality that the West now labors under (where a woman can no longer be so easily defined), the various mindless Western politicians could easily see themselves as somehow immune from a “limited nuclear strike” on Russia—and could easily imagine that in this way Russia will be defeated.

From the point of view of Zelensky, this war has been slowly ramping up—under his guidance. Like the petulant child of indulgent parents, he has always gotten the newest toy that he willfully demands. Nuclear weapons are not off the table. They are the last and final Wunderwaffe.

Was Prigozhin’s action a dramatic slap upside the head of the Russian army (via Shoigu and Gerasimov) to come to its senses and finish off Zelensky’s regime quickly, or there will be Hell to pay? And in such a scenario, Prigozhin stated that if President Putin hesitated in delivering the much-needed coup-de-grace to the Ukraine, then there will be a new president.

All three explanations can be seen playing out in the dramatic events of June 23 and June 24.

The Armed Revolt

Just before midnight, on June 23rd, 2023, Prigozhin called Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov traitors and demanded that they be removed and prosecuted. A few minutes later, Prigozhin declared that the rear of the Wagner positions had been bombed by the Russian army, which necessitated that Prigozhin move against Rostov-on-Don, the city closest to where the Wagnerites were stationed. Shoigu denied this claim, and Surovkin asked the Wagnerites to stand down and seek a peaceful way to settle any disputes. Then, the Russian Federal Security Service (the FSB) stated that Prigozhin was organizing an insurrection and told his soldiers to arrest him. A senior Russian army commander called Prigozhin’s action, “a stab in the back.” No evidence has emerged that Wagnerites had been bombed. Why was Prigozhin making a very serious, but false, claim? The response from the Russian state was also very firm—Prigozhin was a traitor.

The next few hours saw an increased deployment of forces to ensure safety in the areas in and around Rostov-on-Don, with the various roads closely patrolled by government forces. This was, in fact, the rolling out of counterterrorist measures, not only in this region but also in all major cities, especially Moscow. What did the Russian state know, if Prigozhin was simply staging a protest?

By 5:00 am, Saturday June 24th, the PMC Wagner Center (the offices of the Wagner Group) in St. Petersburg was seized by the Russian security services, and further antiterrorist measures were taken in that city—there are now indications that terrorist attacks had been planned by various Ukrainian operatives. Were these coordinated with Prigozhin’s uprising? These had been defused earlier, with the various operatives caught.

By 6:30 am, the Russian Ministry of Defense warned Wagnerites not to take part in Prigozhin’s “criminal gamble.” The majority heeded the warning. And by 7:00 am, a somber President Putin, suitably dressed in black, warned that “treason” would be punished. A criminal case against Prigozhin was opened. Again, what did President Putin know that made him use such strong language? Was there something more sinister behind Prigozhin’s actions?

Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Russian Chechen Republic, pledged support for President Putin and said that his men would ensure the insurrection was properly quelled.

As things became a little clearer, Sergey Naryshkin, head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (the SVR), called the insurrection “treason,” while stating that an attempt to bring about a “civil war” had failed. What the nature of this attempt was, he did not say, but it seems likely that the various people who were to carry out terrorist attacks inside Russia, at this exact time, and who had been caught, had confessed. This only means that Prigozhin’s action was the spark, or signal, for the start of something much bigger, a “civil war.” By this time, Prigozhin was leading a column of his men north, heading for Moscow. Estimates vary as to how many men he actually had—anywhere from 2000 to 5000. Perhaps even less. If it was just a protest, why lead so many armed men to Moscow? Was Prigozhin expecting a fight?

The first foreign country to issue support for President Putin was Turkey, followed by Belarus whose security council rightly called the insurrection a “gift to the collective West;” and a little later came Iran’s support which also stated that it holds to “the rule of law” inside Russia.

To hinder Prigozhin’s column, the bridge over the Oka River, in the city of Kolumna, was barricaded. Why, if it was simply a protest by a patriot?

Prigozhin began to lose steam. It’s a long way to Moscow on that stretch of highway and he was alone on it, in his “protest.” Whatever he might have hoped, one thing was for sure, there were no breakaway army units joining his cause, no mayors and governors throwing their support behind him. Aside from some candy from private citizens, no one joined Prigozhin. For all intents and purposes, he was all alone in this “march.” This belies the West’s narrative of a population just waiting to be “liberated.” In other words, Prigozhin did not start anything bigger. The people were not all that oppressed, it turned out.

Here, a crucial point should be made. The column of Wagnerites was tracked in its progress North and all the while, it could have been easily attacked and destroyed, since Wagner had zero air control. But President Putin showed great restrain, as he has always done, and avoided needless bloodshed (unlike President Zelensky who cannot send his own people fast enough to the slaughter).

Using this restrain as a basis for reaching a settlement, President Lukashenko of Belarus spoke with Prigozhin, whom he has known for twenty odd years and came to a deal that was acceptable to both Prigozhin and to President Putin.

Why did Prigozhin go for the deal? Very simply because he was looking for an out. The expected and hoped for results failed to materialize—the people of Russia stood firmly behind their president, and not behind Prigozhin, though they like him a lot. Suddenly that drive up the M-4 highway looked awfully lonely to Prigozhin, and he suddenly realized that he did not really want to be a martyr for any cause. The bloodshed he later says he avoided was his own.

A little before 8:00 pm, Prigozhin told his men to stand down, and they packed up their gear and went back to base.

During these hours, Wagnerites shot down six aircraft, killing twelve or thirteen Russian servicemen. In other words, Wagnerites spilled Russian blood, something that Prigozhin vowed that he could never do. If it was just a protest, why bring down six aircraft?

The deal that Prigozhin got was generous, to say the least. All charges against him are dropped, but he goes into exile in Belarus. The Wagnerites that followed him would not be prosecuted, but they would also not be brought into the Russian army. Those that did not follow Prigozhin would be able to sign a contract with the Russian army. What will happen to the Wagner Group itself is unknown at the present.

Thus ended Evgeny Prigozhin’s action—in defeat and disgrace.

This in turn demonstrates two things. First, that President Putin prefers dialogue and negotiation over violence and bloodshed (unlike the West, which is forever shooting first and then asking questions later). Second, that President Putin returns ill-will with generosity. He could have easily been a lot harsher (like the US government with the January 6th protestors, for example, or like the vindicative Trudeau with the Truckers). Instead, President Putin demonstrated true nobility, no doubted buoyed by his Christian faith, which has always advocated forgiveness over revenge.

It has been reported that the Unites States and the West in general kept quiet during all this as to show support for Zelensky—and they were also supposedly afraid that any sort of statement might be construed by some as an involvement in “fomenting” Prigozhin’s action. And that the Biden administration knew about Prigozhin’s decision quite a few days before the coup. If so, then what Prigozhin did was not off-the-cuff at all—but a very well-planned and perfectly executed act of treason, orchestrated by the West. Could it be that for Washington and the collective West, having set the ball in motion, it was wait-and-see? More on that later.

And if Washington knew what Prigozhin was about to do, then it is easy to assume that Moscow also knew beforehand and was waiting to see how Prigozhin played his hand and who might rise up in support of him.

Everything points to something far deeper than a thoughtless act of an over-zealous patriot.

Aftermath

For the Russophobes and the Kaganites, this venture will be twisted into an indication that President Putin is vulnerable and weak, whose days are numbered—in that Prigozhin’s act is just the first among many more yet to come, since the collective West is a bitter clinger to the myth of “Putin the tyrant” who is “hated by his own people.”

The Belorussian security council was correct in its assessment—Prigozhin did indeed hand the West “a valuable gift” which will be used in various ways, chief among them being more support and cash for Zelensky, “for as long as it takes.”

The Russian response to this insurrection will also be carefully studied by the West, as it still dreams of invading and conquering Russia. The systems, the units, and the technology deployed will have been very carefully noted and studied.

President Putin not taking revenge will be instantly misread as weakness, with the narrative that “Putin is afraid” of the “great support” that Prigozhin enjoys among ordinary Russians.

Most tragic of all, the West will keep pushing Ukrainian soldiers into the meatgrinder, because somehow all this will bring about the end of President Putin and a “free” Russia.

A Colonel’s Coup

Putting everything together, it would seem that it is unlikely that Prigozhin acted out of disgruntlement. It was a coup d’état, meant precisely to overthrow President Putin and install himself as the “new president.” He himself said as much.

It is also highly unlikely that Prigozhin acted alone. This sort of action does not come out of the blue, with him one day waking up on the wrong side of the bed. As time will eventually tell, Prigozhin was in league with the West-NATO. He was their man. The Dicord leaks say as much. This is why he always reiterated the talking points of Western MSM about Russia and its fragility in all his rant videos on Telegram.

But, then, what about his victory in Bakhmut? It was a genuine victory, but one which he hoped to use to further his ambition of being Russia’s next president. Did the West also then betray the Ukraine and facilitate this victory in order take firmer hold of Prigozhin? This would be difficult to prove, but given the idea that he was their man, it should not be discounted.

Taking a few steps back, he likely had seasoned handlers (likely the British and Washington) who in turn used him with great precision. Their goal was threefold.

First, if Prigozhin actually succeeded in removing Putin and becoming president, well, he would be their man and they could being in the Kaganite masterplan for Russia.

But, second, and this was likely the preferred option, the hope was that the march North to Moscow would trigger Putin to act irrationally, call out the military and destroy Prigozhin and his men on the M-4 highway, which could have been easily done, given the available man- and firepower advantage. This would make Prigozhin a “martyr” who could then be used to foment nation-wide unrest and bring about a civil war, with Russians divided over love of a war hero and loyalty to their president (most of the West firmly believes that this assumption is true). A dead Prigozhin was the preferred outcome of this coup, likely unbeknownst to Prigozhin himself.

Third, and less preferrable, were Prigozhin to fail and yet remain alive, there would be the less effective but still useful narrative of a “weak Putin” that could be endlessly spun, with Prigozhin becoming a trope of all that is “wrong” with Putin’s Russia, and that there were many more Prigozhins yet to come.

Of course, it is the third option that prevailed.

Likely knowing all this, President Putin handled the coup deftly and put into play something that his enemies had not expected—the greater power of wisdom. Through diplomacy, he averted a well-planned disaster for his country.

What might have President Putin told Prigozhin? He likely told him to look around him and count how many people were actually following him? All Prigozhin would see would be his own Wagnerites (some 8000 men, at best, since the majority of his men did not join in the coup). What Prigozhin had hoped for was not going to happen—there would no mayors, no governors, no army units, no police, no internal guardsmen, and most important of all—no waves of the Russian people throwing their lot with him.

Prigozhin was all alone.

He had two options: die trying, or head back. To save himself, he turned back. His colonel’s coup had ended.

War Fatigue

On a positive note, Prigozhin’s action has brought to the fore the most important issue—everyone is sick of this war in the Ukraine, especially how the West keeps prolonging it by its money and its rhetroic. Russia long ago achieved its goal of demilitarizing the Ukraine, which now cannot fight its way out of a paper bag without the West’s help. But the stupidity of the collective West should not be underestimated. The rulers of the West still are burning with war fever.

But there are indications that a peace plan is being prepared, which will be ready by mid-July. it is not a serious plan, in and of itself, but it does show that the West may at last be seeing reason and seeking a way out. One can only hope that the West will at last come to its senses—and finally abandon its Kaganite pipe-dreams.

But most important of all, what this revolt clearly demonstrated, for those who have eyes to see, is that the Russian nation is far from fragile; rather, it is robust and impermiable to threat. The Russian people are united; they truly are a strong community, which the West’s machinations cannot undo, and they will not break apart and carry out a civil war for the pleasure of the West (as happened in 1917, with the ensuing Russian Civil War which went miserably on until 1924).

In the end, Prigozhin was the West’s last hurrah. They have no more viable options left. This is why they keep toying with the nuclear option. We can only pray that the West will not be that idiotic. But then they do keep talking about too many people on the planet. What better way to cull the herd than a few nukes to then usher in the Green New Deal. The West keeps showing that it’s satanic enough. Also, the West never hesitated blowing up the Nordstream pipelines nor the Kakhova Dam, and they mjght actually believe that a nuclear strike can be “contained.” But then they likely all have their bunkers to scurry into and wait it out.

As for President Putin, his decisions and his actions are a worthy testament to his strength, to his Christian faith, his stalwart character, his moral integrity, and to the great stability of his rule: he could have easily destroyed the Wagnerites and killed Prigozhin. Instead, he chose the more noble option: “Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you… Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful” (Luke 6:27; 36). Politics guided by real morality, not the fake one spouted endlessly by our Western leaders. Imagine that.

Would that the West had just one leader as wise as President Putin. Instead, we are lorded over by cruel fools, who delight in war, as a way to demonstrate their moral superiority. “The arrows of children are their wounds” (Psalm 63).

C.B. Forde is a full-time farmer and part-time reader of books suggested to him, at times, by his wife.

The Merits of the British Empire

“I study the course of events in India very closely; and what do I see? Why, that you are doing everything you possibly can to teach the inhabitants their own strength. You establish schools; you educate the people; they read your language, many of them even your newspapers; and the leading men know what is going on in Europe just as well as you yourselves. But the day will come when some agitators will set these thinking masses in motion; and then what force have you to oppose to them? If ever here was a nation determined to commit suicide it is England. She holds India, as she herself allows, by the force of arms, and yet she is doing everything in her power to induce the conquered country to throw off the yoke.”

There was a great deal of reason undoubtedly in what he had urged. However, there is one argument in favour of further education in India, which is, that the better educated the natives of India become, the greater probability of their seeing that their own interests are far more likely to be cared for under a British than a Russian rule. But this still leaves open the question of whether they might not prefer to govern themselves, which undoubtedly will some day be the case.

(Fred Burnaby, A Ride to Khiva, 1877)

We live in an age in which assumptions determine much of what we do. These assumptions need not be based on any desire for truth, but simply for expedience (which is commonly known as “ideology”). For example, there is the easy assumption that genders cannot exist, and this has become a “truth” in western society, a truth given vehemence by the weight of authority and the law.

And when our society casts an eye backwards, history is to be understood through the lens of so many assumptions that it is often difficult to stay abreast. To make things easier, to be on the safe side, just assume that anything that Europeans ever did in the past was not only wrong, but morally reprehensible and outright cruel, because “whiteness” is inherently violent. Our present age is much given to empty moralizing in order to fabricate caricatures—but that’s another topic entirely.

And no topic is more morally fraught than colonialism, which as any worthy denizen of the university scene knows is to be roundly condemned. To say anything that might be deemed a defense thereof is instantly called out as “racism” or “white supremacism.” Having a past carefully construed a certain way is crucial to the powerbrokers of our world, and this fabrication can never have flaws, errors, or lies. To say otherwise is a betrayal of humanity itself, ergo akin to Nazism.

Nigel Biggar’s latest book, Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, therefore, goes straight for the jugular—it addresses the question of morality and colonialism: “What I have written is not a history of the British Empire but a moral assessment of it.” In other words, the British Empire was not an evil cancer let loose upon the world, nor was it organized banditry, robbing the hapless of their wealth—but a great force for good, which heaved much of what has now descended into being the “third world” into modernity. In effect, when the British left their colonies, they left them quite a lot better than they found them. This fact cannot be denied, though objections be raised by pointing to this or that injustice. Why is India, for example, today the largest democracy? In fact, who created what is today known as “India?” But let’s not get waylaid by the famous Monty Python skit, “What have the Romans ever done for us?”

Because Mr. Biggar is giving us a “moral reckoning” rather than a historical summary of colonialism, what he ends up doing is to return impartiality to the study of history, which is in much need of rescue, having entirely dashed itself on the rocks, so intent has it been listening to the Siren-song of “political activism”: “What is wrong, however, is when moral and political motives refuse to allow themselves to be tempered or corrected by data and reason. For then, the motives distort and mislead; and when they distort and mislead repeatedly and wilfully, they lie.” Perhaps, the whole idea is to use history for political ends—where entire populations can be given permanent “victim,” ergo morally superior, status, while relegating another population to the role of “oppressor,” who can then be held up for cathartic abuse by the victim-class. Thus, we slouch our way to virtue, for the past is filled with all the sins that we have repented from—they were slavers, we are givers of reparations to populations we have labeled the eternal victims of history.

Because the book is a moral assessment of the British Empire, Mr. Biggar wisely avoids a chronological structure of the beginning, middle and end. Instead, each chapter unpacks a moral question to which historical data is adduced. This method directly addresses the “moral” habit of mind that is now commonplace when dealing with the past, in that we are continually asked to judge the past, usually in order to reify our own moral superiority to it. But more sinisterly—in order to govern how we must behave, think and live.

Each chapter also deals with the various arguments that anti-colonialist thought uses in order to deny the achievements of the British Empire. Thus, the first chapter deals with motivation, in which the idea of “conquest” is mapped out, in a reasoned and balanced manner. Just as with the growth of the Roman Empire, the British one also became what it did as a “consequence of international rivalry and war, and the associated need to gain a competitive advantage.” It wasn’t so much conquest as cooperation. For example, the majority of India was not British, for there were a total 461 princely states that were independent (most of them later regretted that they joined the “India” or “Pakistan” that came afterwards—and many of the problems now besetting both these post-colonial countries are products of this misunderstanding of cooperation: for example, Gilgit, Baltistan, Kashmir). In effect, Indian and Pakistani hegemony was exerted upon these once-independent princely states, with the result that now there is much resentment, strife, and rivalry, which is far from having been resolved. Most princely states did not want to join India or Pakistan, but were forced to.

All this means that the building of nationhood is not some fairy-dust that comes ready at hand the moment the blinkers of colonialism are removed. Rather, the nations that emerged from the British Empire, for example, could never truly get their act together. Why is that? Could it be that the greater project of Empire was stymied by the consequences of the Second World War?

But such a question is never honestly, let alone fully, answered; and the usual strategy is deflection by anti-colonialists. The funny thing about these anti-colonialists… they often tend to be people who have benefitted the most from colonialism. But let’s just put that down to the many ironies of history, shall we?

Another favorite topic is slavery, which existed in the world long before the British and is flourishing today, with little or no objection from anyone in power, especially from people who have strong opinions about slavery in the past. This is a very curious abuse of history, where crimes of today are ignored, while much breast-beating is done for crimes, real or imagined, of the past. Be that as it may, it is always emphatically stated that the slave-trade and the use of slaves was a cash-cow for the British Empire, a monolith entirely demolished by serious history, as Mr. Biggar explains. But then it was also the British who actively worked to destroy this ancient institution of captive labor, with men like Adam Smith, but mostly because of Christian charity: “The vicious racism of slavers and planters was not essential to the British Empire, and whatever racism exists in Britain today is not its fruit… The British Empire cannot be equated with slavery, since, during the second half of the empire’s life, imperial policy was consistently committed to abolishing it.”

Racism, of course, is a staple in any anti-colonialist argument. But there is much confusion, given that the stress today is on skin color and not on race as such. This is not surprising, given how difficult it is to pin-down what “race” ultimately means; whereas skin-color is a no-brainer. Thus, today the concern is with “shadism” rather than racism. But the attitude of the British Empire is best summed up by Sir Cecil Rhodes, a man anti-colonialist love to hate: “I do not believe that they are different from ourselves… a man, white or black who has sufficient education to write his name, has some property, or works. In fact, is not a loafer.” Rhodes was interested in the qualities and conditions of civilization, available to all of humanity, and which had nothing to do with shadism. Instead, the greater accumulation of data leads to a more disturbing conclusion—that it is our present age which is obsessed with skin-color, wherein the greater the melanin, the greater the innate virtue; the lesser the melanin, the greater the innate evil. Such is the new “Natural Law” of Western officialdom, which has entirely replaced the original, Christian understanding of Natural Law, grounded in dignity: that mankind is made in the image of God. Now, skin color determines the man. Melanin, yet another progressive pixy-dust, dissipates evil.

Mr. Biggar proceeds assiduously examining the various objections of the anti-colonialists and undoing them by patient laying out of data. Thus, the old stand-by arguments in which the grand themes of genocide, exploitation, greed, conquest, violence are delivered as “evidence” for the “crimes” of the British Empire are all weighed in the scale of reason and found either wanting, or to be exaggerated or simple fabrications: “To describe British colonial government as simply or generally oppressive and exploitative, as is commonly done, may satisfy certain ideological prejudices but it obscures the complicated historical truth. Colonial rule would not have been possible at all without the widespread acquiescence, participation and cooperation of native peoples.”

The examples that Mr. Biggar provides are essential to his method of tackling anti-colonialist themes—but this method also does something that is crucial, given the posture that the West has now assumed, of equating anything “white” with everything evil, especially “white” males. The strength of Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning therefore is its fearless honesty. Like all true human endeavors, the British Empire was not a concerted effort to build a utopia for “white.” Rather, it was a system of deep cooperation between British and native interests and aspiration, chief among them being the pursuit of peace: “…peaceful politics usually requires compromise, and some compromises are morally justified, even obligatory.”

This pursuit peace flies in the face of what is now being attempted in the West, where through sheer political will a shadist utopia is indeed being constructed, which is gradually, but relentlessly, yielding a dystopia, marked by fear and loathing of humanity which does not bear the government-approved shade of skin, and in which humanity is assigend labels of either oppressor or victim. And never the twain shall meet. Such is the world that anti-colonialists seek to build as an answer to colonialism?

Mr. Biggar’s book is also a wake-up call to those of that live in the West, where violence can be justified by convenient references to the past; one in which humanity lives in a never-ending agon of one shade of people against another. Long forgotten is the idea that history provides each one of us a moral responsibility to be our brothers’ keeper. Not in some mealy-mouthed way, but in a genuine care for one another in the context of community. Finally, it was the necessity of this care that marked the British Empire, however loudly the anti-colonialists may decry this conclusion.

The book ends with very crucial question: “And yet exaggeration of colonialism’s sins is often not at all reluctant, but wilful, even gleeful. Far from being resisted, it is embraced. The anti-colonialists want the worst to be true, and so they meet any suggestion to the contrary not with the eyes of curiosity, but the fist of aggression. But why? What is going on here, psychologically, even spiritually?”

Although Mr. Biggar proceeds to provide an answer, it is necessarily an incomplete one—and it is as it should be, because it is a question that more and more needs to be asked again and again—why this gleeful hatred? Why hatred as morality?

Mr. Biggar has written a fascinating, spirited and triumphant book. His data and arguments cannot easily be put aside. If honesty is the true quest of doing history, then anti-colonialist arguments have been rather deftly gutted by this book and can no longer be taken seriously. That is, if truth still matters.

C.B. Forde is a full-time farmer and part-time reader, yes, even of books recommeneded to him by his wife.

Featured: John Eardley Wilmot, by Benjamin West; painted in 1812.

Crusaders in the Holy Land: A Unique Civilization

The Crusades have long been a contentious topic, and over the years scholarship has largely fallen into two camps: those that view this enterprise as European aggression (Ur-colonialism) and those that view it as a response to relentless Muslim aggression. The former view tends to predominate, especially in popular culture, where films, television shows and novels favor the trendy explanation of the Levant falling victim to “European violence.” Given the wide reach of media, such simplistic views have become “settled history.” Various efforts are made to counter this ideological reading of the Crusades (and the Middle Ages in general), but with little effect. The mainstream narrative yet holds sway, and in the popular mind the Crusades are evidence of innate European belligerence unleashed upon the world. One of the major problems with this narrative approach is Presentism, which then poses the “East” and the “West” as two irreconcilable monoliths that can only but continually clash. Saner scholarship recognizes the silliness of such an approach and has slowly been trying to make a difference by showing that the medieval world was neither ignorant nor parochial, and in which violence was more controlled than in our own day. The most recent example of such scholarship is Helena P. Schrader’s latest book, The Holy Land in the Era of the Crusades: Kingdoms at the Crossroads of Civilization, 1100-1300.

This eloquent book is a comprehensive narrative history of a unique Christian civilization in Palestine—the Crusader States. It is also a noble and honest effort to “set the record straight,” by presenting the entirety of the crusading effort as one of interaction, in which the East and the West met and fashioned a unique civilization. In the words of Schrader:

“While historians of past centuries portrayed the Latin Christians living in these states as a tiny, urban elite afraid to venture into the countryside out of fear of their subjects, there is a growing consensus among the scholars of the twenty-first century that the majority of the population was Christian, not Muslim, and that the degree of intermingling and tolerance between Latin and Orthodox Christians was much higher than had been assumed” (xxxiv).

Towards this end, the book seeks to be as meticulous and well-researched as possible, in which it aptly succeeds. It begins with a 24-page chronology that details the history of the Levant within the context of Christianity (which brought Catholics, commonly known as the “Franks” or “Latins,” into the region, who then established various principalities, or “Crusader States,” which were politically linked with each other and with Europe) and Islam (which eventually gave the Turks enduring dominance in the Holy Land).

The book is divided into two parts, wherewith the analysis moves from the larger to the particular. Thus, Part I, “A Short History of the Crusader States,” describes the process through which the Franks came to the Levant and set up religious, political, cultural and military structures which would ensure that the Holy Land would remain territory essential and important to the Christian faith. This meant the establishment of permanent settlements, or what later became known as the “Crusader States,” or “Outremer” (“Overseas”), as the people of that time called this settlement. Schrader carefully traces the course that needed to be followed to ensure success in this undertaking, and as such follows the rise and fall of the Crusader States, from 1099 (when Jerusalem came under Frankish rule) to 1291 when Acre fell and Frankish influence contracted and eventually disappeared from the region.

The importance of Part I is that it gives the reader a thorough understanding of the complexity of the Crusades in their entirety, while never neglecting the dynamics at play in the Muslim world, where Mongol, Turk and Egyptian rivalries held sway. It is truly commendable that Schrader offers an all-inclusive review of the forces in contention in the Levant over a two-hundred-year period. What emerges is the real picture of the Crusades—that they were a massive investment of effort, talent, money and most of all of faith which allowed for a unique civilization to emerge and flourish, becoming an envy of the world in so many ways.

It is the quality and quantity of this “Crusader” or “Frankish” civilization that Schrader turns to in Part II of her book, which is sub-titled, “A Description of the Crusader States.” Here, Schrader really comes into her own as she takes the reader on a captivating “journey” into the world of Outremer. Each chapter presents facts and analysis, so that a lot of the popular myths about the Crusades are laid to rest. For example, we learn that the population of the Levant was predominantly Christian and not Muslim, as widely and mistakenly assumed. Indeed, the Christian population of what is now known as the Middle East and even Central Asia was heavily Christian. It was only in the fourteenth century that the Christians of the East were methodically annihilated, and the area became what it is today—the final chapter of this annihilation was the Armenian Genocide (which occurred in two parts: 1890-1909 and 1915-1917). Of course, this topic lies outside the scope of Schrader’s book.

Next, Schrader examines the complex polity that emerged in Outremer, the concept of the “nation-state,” which of course had a direct influence on the life of the West in the centuries ahead, down to our own time, where the nation-state is the prime form of civilization. In other words, Outremer was a two-hundred-year long success story—it was hardly colonial “occupation.” The reason for this success, as Schrader shows, is the stability of the institutions that were rather quickly established, such as the very effective judiciary, in which the Muslim peasantry prospered (unlike Muslim peasantry in Islamic-run jurisdictions), as well as the establishment of churches and monasteries which allowed culture, learning and the Christian faith to flourish, especially the ease of pilgrimage (which led to the rise of Holy Land “tourism,” and all of the support industries that tourists need).

Diplomacy was another key component of the success of Outremer, whereby a balance of power was effectively achieved and maintained between the various rivals, namely, Mamluk Egypt, the debilitated Byzantine rule, the many fiefdoms of the Turks, and the Mongol Empire. It was the Crusader States who “micro-managed” this balancing act, so that trade between the East and the West flourished, despite the ambitions of particular rulers: “The willingness… to treat with the religious and strategic enemy on a short-term tactical basis meant that de facto peace reigned in the crusader states far more frequently than war” (193) , because “the Franks maintained sophisticated and largely effective diplomatic relations with all the major players in the Eastern Mediterranean” (196).

As Schrader also points out, the Levant was a backwater before the Crusaders came—but because the land was holy to Christianity, it saw a massive input that transformed the region into a going concern: “Investment into infrastructure revitalised the rural economy and enabled the expansion of trading networks. Existing cities grew, and ancient cities such as Caesarea and Ramla, which had gone to ruin, were revived. Indeed, entire new settlements and villages were built. The larger cities, such as Acre, Tyre, Beirut, Tripoli and Antioch, became booming urban centres with larger populations than the capitals of the West. Not until the mid-thirteenth century did Western European cities start to compete in size with the cities of the Latin East” (197).

As well, this investment returned strategic importance: “Most importantly, the Franks connected the traditional oriental trade routes with the growing, increasingly prosperous and luxury-hungry markets of Western Europe” (198). The reason for this flourishing trade was the building of infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, and water management. Trade agreements were struck and banking practices introduced, which then led to manufacturing. Sugar, textiles (especially silk, samite and siqlatin), soap, wine, olive oil, leather goods, glass were all manufactured in the Crusader States.

Given this revitalization program, agriculture returned to this land long considered barren, so that cities began to flourish, and a distinct Outremer culture emerged, such as icon painting, book production, shrines and holy places where the faithful came in droves to receive blessing in the land trodden by God Himself, as the famous 13th century Palestinalied (Song of Palestine) relates: “Ich bin komen an die stat,/ dâ got menischlîchen trat (I am come to the city where God trod as a man).” This spiritual “currency” lay at the heart of this region, a “currency” that could never be depleted. And here the work of charity was paramount, which saw the building of hospitals, caravanserais, inns, as well as monasteries, churches and many chapels by confraternities and monastic orders.

The cities themselves were well-planned, with effective sewage systems, baths and even flushing toilets. Trade supplied the many open-air and enclosed markets. There were orchards and gardens surrounding each city, with aqueducts, pools and fountains to supply water. It is important to note that many of these cities were not fortified—that is, they did not lie inside protective walls—cities such as Nazareth, Hebron, Nablus and Ramla. This detail is important—for it points to the fact that life was, in fact, very peaceful, which flies in the face of the usual and popular trope of Crusader brutality.

But this not to say that the military aspect was not important, for defense was necessary, given the endless ambitions of the rulers of the time (Mongol, Mamluk and Turk). Thus, Frankish Levant saw the emergence of unique castle styles, chief and most impressive of which was the concentric castle, the best examples of which is Krak de Chevaliers and Belvoir which overlooks the Jordan valley (“Belvoir” in Old French means, “Good view”).

Frankish architecture was unique also because it did not destroy what originally existed: “Beyond their sheer scale and number, one of the most striking features of these various projects was the degree to which the Franks sensitively and respectfully incorporated the remains of earlier buildings into their renovation projects. In sharp contrast to the prevailing view of crusaders as bigoted barbarians, when it came to architecture, the crusaders sought to preserve rather than destroy. This was true of Muslim structures as well as Christian ones” (233).

One of the greatest achievements of Outremer was its art and its literature, both little known and studied. There survives, for example, the exquisite Melisende Psalter, with its illustrations that perfectly combine Byzantine, Armenian, Syriac, Coptic and Latin elements to produce a style that is original to Outremer. And then there are the frescoes of the 12th century Church of St. Jeremiah at Abu-Ghosh (the biblical Emmaus), which are the finest expression of Crusader art (despite their Byzantine “look”), although they now survive in a much damaged condition.

This comprehensive book ends with the history of the Ibelin family who typify the kinds of people that came to Outremer and made it the splendorous civilization that it was: “…while the Ibelins were undoubtedly exceptionally successful, they were also in many ways typical. They embodied the overall experience, characteristics and ethos of the Franks in the Holy Land. They came from obscure, probably non-noble origins, and the dynasty’s founder can be classed as an ‘adventurer’ and ‘crusader’. They rapidly put down roots in the Near East, intermarrying with native Christian and Byzantine elites. They were hardened and cunning fighting men able to deploy arms and tactics unknown to the West and intellectuals who could win wars with words in the courts. They were multilingual, cosmopolitan and luxury-loving, as comfortable in baths as in battles” (267).

But why did this great civilization in the Holy Land end, after two hundred years of great success? The answers are as varied as the scholars who seek to give a response to this question. Schrader is accurate in her own conclusion—that Outremer was a victim of its own success. Because it was such a “shining city on the hill,” others fought to possess it. But more tragically, the bane of Frankish rule was the incessant in-fighting, where factions vied for power and where loyalty was circumscribed by personal ambition. As well, the latter rulers had divided loyalty—they were more interested in maintaining their holdings and influence in Europe than looking after what previous generations had built in the Holy Land. It is that old cycle of civilization—the generations that inherent wealth effectively waste it and lose it.

And the legacy of Outremer? This is how Schrader summarizes it: “… the crusader states in the Levant were the home to a rare flourishing of international trade, intellectual and technological exchange, innovation, hybrid art forms and unique architecture, advances in health care and evolution of the constitutional principles of the rule-of-law” (305).

For its scope, its depth and its variety of subject matter, this book truly succeeds as a work of exceptional narrative history. By glancing at the past, we may well learn something about the narrowness of our own age.

C.B. Forde confesses to being a closet history buff, that is whenever he can tear himself away from the demands of the little bit of land that he cultivates.

Featured: The Last Judgment, a fresco in the Church of St. Jeremiah (Emmaus), in Abu-Ghosh, Israel; painted in the latter parts of the 12th century.

How the West Brought War to Ukraine: A Review

[Read an excerpt from How the West Brought War to Ukraine]

It can be rather effectively argued that the greatest export commodity of the USA is war, commonly known as the Military Industrial Complex, which has spent the bloody decades after WWII bringing “democracy” to the benighted of the world—by bombs and sanctions, if necessary.

The latest such grand crusade is the war in Ukraine, which we have all been told to think of as “us” defending a fragile “democracy,” invaded out of the blue by the latest manifestation of Attila the Hun. Here was Ukraine happily minding its own business, until one day Putin woke up and decided that he needed to be a world-conqueror and off he went to “invade” Ukraine. The simplistic narrative of the “innocent” and the “criminal” has deep appeal in the Western psyche, conditioned no doubt by Hollywood. Thus, all the media had to do was point out the “criminal,” and the rest took care of itself. Out came all the virtue-signaling that the West is now so good at mustering. Now, there is not a shred of doubt in the minds of the majority in the West that this is a war between the “good guys” and the “Great Villain,” with the likes of Biden, Justin Trudeau, Britain and all the other cheerleaders for “democracy” constantly handing David’s loaded sling-shot to Ukraine to get the job done—but which the likes of Zelensky keep dropping. This is what fighting villainy to the last Ukrainian actually looks like.

But there is a far worse invasion that was completed a long time ago—that of the Western mind, addled by what is euphemistically known as “the mainstream media,” which knows that spin is the most effective form of victory in any war.

This is why Benjamin Abelow’s book, How the West brought War to Ukraine is a must-read, for it shows that this war is not about Ukraine, but about Russia, which needs to be brought to heel and become “democratic”: “…the vaunted goal of ‘regime change,’ which in the United States is sought by an informal alliance of Republican neoconservatives and Democratic liberal interventionists” (p. 5).

Abelow is careful in his analysis and gives a thorough and balanced account of what led Russia to undertake an attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Despite mainstream narratives, the attack was carefully provoked (orchestrated comes to mind). So, unlike “settled history,” which would have us believe that Ukraine is the “innocent bystander” in all this, Abelow undertakes a meticulous unpacking of the various provocations (Ukrainian and Western), which began in 1990 and finally came to a head on February 24, 2022. Wars don’t just happen; they are the result of a long series of failures and outrages. In the words of Professor Richard Sakwa: “In the end, NATO’s existence became justified by the need to manage the security threats provoked by its enlargement. The former Warsaw Pact and Baltic states joined NATO to enhance their security, but the very act of doing so created a security dilemma for Russia that undermined the security of all” (p. 51).

Given that Russia is a nation-state, it must look after its geopolitical interests and defend what is crucial to what it deems necessary to continue, as Jacques Baud has so often pointed out in this magazine. Not to recognize these interests is to be blind to reality: “The underlying cause of the war lies not in an unbridled expansionism of Mr. Putin, or in paranoid delusions of military planners in the Kremlin, but in a 30-year history of Western provocations, directed at Russia, that began during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and continued to the start of the war. These provocations placed Russia in an untenable situation, for which war seemed, to Mr. Putin and his military staff, the only workable solution” (p. 7).

These provocations are now well-known, and thus rigorously ignored, denied or glossed over as “Russian propaganda.” These include bringing arms as close to the Russian border as possible; the expansion of NATO, despite promises given to Russia that that would never happen; the withdrawal of the US from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (which now gives the US first-strike capability); the ousting of a democratically elected Ukrainian government and installing neo-Nazis into power in 2014; NATO military exercises along the Russian border; pushing Ukraine to join NATO, despite warnings from Russia that that would mean war; since 2014, training and arming the Ukrainian military, in which many of the units are openly neo-Nazi; actively nurturing Russophobia in Ukraine; encouraging the bloody war in the Eastern portions of Ukraine, which were seen as “pro-Russian” and therefore hostile. There are many others that can be listed.

Of course, the last provocation was telling Zelensky not to negotiate when Russia attacked on February 24. He was ready to do so, and a war would have easily have been avoided, and many helpless lives saved. But Boris Johnson flew out, met the Ukrainian president, and negotiation was off the table.

And this is the most baffling thing—the West does not want peace at all. It wants a war of total annihilation for Russia, which will never happen, of course, but which the West so far seems not to understand (perhaps because it is now governed by leaders who have little understanding of warcraft). No Western politician bravely calls for negotiations, for a ceasefire, for peace, for even a little breather. It’s war and more war, and the billions and arms keep pouring in: “To my knowledge, Zelensky never received any substantial American support to pursue his peace agenda. Instead, he was subjected to repeated visits by leading American politicians and State Department officials, all of whom spouted a theoretical principle of absolute Ukrainian freedom, defined as the “right” to join NATO and to establish a U.S. military outpost on Russia’s border. In the end, this “freedom” was worse than a pipe dream. Although it advanced the aims of the United States—or, more accurately, the interests of certain American political, military, and financial factions—it destroyed Ukraine” (p. 60).

The military historian Bernard Wicht, whose interview appears elsewhere in this magazine, very astutely observes that the West no longer has the ability to wage conventional war—not even the United States; this is why armed conflict in the 21st century is now “farmed” out to modern-day condottieri, who bring their private armies wherever their paymasters tell them to go. Is this is why billions are being sent to Ukraine, to pay for all the mercenaries? The war machine chugs along, indeed.

The strength of Abelow’s book is that it makes complexity accessible. Wars have so many moving parts, and Abelow with a deft hand guides the reader along. As is true of all good writers, this book is filled with clarity and insight, with an eye for the bigger picture, and all the while letting facts lead where they will. This is a rare talent nowadays.

Given the much-mentioned threat of nuclear war, the book ends with a prescient warning: “Policy makers in Washington and the European capitals—along with the captured, craven media that uncritically amplify their nonsense—are now standing up to their hips in a barrel of viscous mud. How those who were foolish enough to step into that barrel will find the wisdom to extricate themselves before they tip the barrel and take the rest of us down with them is hard to imagine” (p. 62).

Finally, as professor Sakwa pointed out, this entire tragedy would have been easily avoided if Zelensky had been encouraged to say just five little words: “Ukraine will not join NATO.” Why he could not say that lays the entire blood-guilt upon the collective leadership of the West.

How the West brought War to Ukraine is satisfying to read because it brings truth to light—and that is the highest calling any worthy writer can pursue. Rush out and buy it; and after you’ve read it, you will be both amazed and infuriated. The condottieri now run the show—but perhaps we the decent folk of this world will learn once again how to get rid of them. Perhaps this will be this war’s silver lining.

C.B. Forde lives in rural Ontario, Canada, where he reads, thinks and dreams.