I saw a photo on X last year that explains why Elias Rodriguez, an admin associate at the American Osteopathic Association, murdered two employees of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC. It was a photo of an Australian man holding a sign at a rally that read:
The WORLD Thinks That GAZA is occupie [sic] by ISRAEL
The Truth is That The World is occupied By ISRAEL
EXCEPT GAZA
It was a funny sign, but I didn’t laugh. There was wisdom behind the weird font. Seen from a certain vantage point, the idea that the Jews have occupied the world isn’t as crazy as it sounds. In fact, some of the world’s best philosophers, theologians, and scientists have taken up versions of that idea in a whole literary genre dedicated to the “mystery of Israel.”
Awareness of this great mystery usually starts with simple questions: Why do Jews make up such a large percentage of New York City slumlords? Why are they so over-represented among Nobel Prize winners? How do they seem to rise to the top of business, politics, media, and academia so consistently? How do they punch above their weight for so long, denying the natural forces of history? In times of crisis, we ask other questions. Why were Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush equally obsessed with Israel? And how does one dupe a superpower into supporting a genocide?
These questions are all racist in one way or another, but people have been asking them for a long time. They all start from the same observation and arrive at one of two conclusions: the Jews are unique either because they’re very good or very bad—there is no middle position. Taking the Nobel Prize example, we can say that Jews are either smarter than everyone else or win more prizes (and win more generally) because they invented the game we’re all playing. Both answers see a conspiracy, but disagree about who’s responsible.
The first answer derives from the original tradition forged in Jerusalem, which is accepted by traditional Jews and Christians (the latter in amended form). Taking the Bible at face value, this tradition explains Jewish survival in terms of divine favor: The Bible is the Word of God, and Israel’s story is the microcosm of God’s work in history. The Jews really met a supernatural being at Sinai; they really are a chosen people. But if they gained from chosenness they lost much more, suffering double-punishment from God and His enemies, and often in tandem. Jews and Christians have developed different doctrines and religious systems, but both agree the Jews stand out because God wanted it that way–which, on a positive note, means the God of Israel is real and still moving in history. It’s this point of agreement that provided the moral and intellectual foundation of the West.
The second tradition takes a different tack. Rejecting Israel’s God as a lie, it sees Jewish power as too pervasive to be a coincidence. Israel’s occupation is bigger than Gaza and the West Bank—indeed, Israel occupies the whole world, and invisibly. Long ago, the Jews learned that conquering an enemy’s mind was easier than defeating him in war. Wheeling the Trojan Horse of Christianity into Rome, they uploaded their group mind to an empire, and from there to the world. The “mystery of Israel” is in fact the greatest psyop in history, and the Bible the best soft-power tool ever invented. Jerusalem isn’t a Holy City—it’s Mystery Babylon.
Elias sees the world through the lens of this second tradition. He didn’t kill his victims because of endless wars, Palestine, or Aryan race theory. He didn’t care how they smelled or how much property they owned. He wasn’t part of a terrorist group. He killed them for the same reason Hamas killed babies on 10/7, and ten thousand Americans on the other side would join an Israeli foreign legion if one started tomorrow. Because, good or bad, Israel merits a special response. For Elias, watching Israel impose its zombie-state on Palestinians like it impposed its mythology on the world, the answer is clear. To the extent it maintains a stranglehold on the planet, Israel is ultimate–and worth killing for.
Once again the children of darkness are wiser than the children of light. Elias knows that Israel matters, but growing numbers of Americans don’t get it. They forget that America didn’t become the most pro-Jewish country in history by chance. Many of our founders were steeped in Hebrew culture (Philadelphia’s Independence Hall may have hosted the most Judaically-literate group of non-Jews ever assembled in one room) and were intrigued by the idea of a Jewish state long before Theodor Herzl was born–as were, interestingly, the slaves over which they ruled. Even as late as 1900, many Americans were still studying Hebrew or had once tried. “From Maine to Florida, and back again, all America Hebraises,” Matthew Arnold lamented. Even educated Americans reeked of the Old Testament. It was in their blood.
But that was a long time ago. The metaphysical link that binds America and Israel is unraveling. The old story has been abandoned, repurposed, and weaponized against its creators. Some people have traded “Judeo-Christian” for “Abrahamic” in hopes of more inclusiveness; others are eager to proclaim “Christ is King.” It’s not by accident that the unraveling of biblical culture in America coincides with a spike in violence against the Jews. The counter-myth succeeds because the old myth is gone.
Antisemitism is never going away (here is the beginning of wisdom) but it can be fought, even reduced in some eras to effectively zero. Tougher laws, more cops, self-defense, it’s all needed. But the real fight is in hearts of Americans who have forgotten our portion in Jacob—and who probably haven’t heard that reference until today. Unfortunately, that’s not something a government can fix.
