James M. Redwine

Israel

The Wages of Sin

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Iran may not have been America’s ally in 2025 when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slithered his way into Donald Trump’s psyche and sowed discord between America and Iran. But at least we were not at war with them and the Strait of Hormuz was open. And lest we forget, America and Iran were close allies until 1979. Netanyahu used false intelligence to con Trump into doing what previous U.S. presidents refused to do. It is reminiscent of the Hebrew religious hierarchy’s manipulation of the Roman Empire in Israel during the time of Jesus.

When Jesus lived, Rome ruled the land of Israel and Roman law prevailed in all areas of the non-Roman’s lives except for ecclesiastical matters. Rome was the America of that era. The Romans allowed the Jewish people to worship as they chose and to regulate their own religious affairs. However, when it came to criminal laws the local inhabitants had no authority. Thus, when the Hebrew religious hierarchy alleged Jesus was fomenting anarchy through heresy, they had to have the Roman officials charge and punish him. The problem for the Jewish religious leaders was that, after two separate inquests, the Romans determined Jesus had broken no criminal laws. That was not what the Sadducees and Pharisees wanted to hear. They pressured the Romans to ignore the law. And, as our Founder and main author of our U.S. Constitution, James Madison, cautioned: a country must comply with its own laws; the Rule of Law is paramount to a free society

President Trump has ignored the clear mandates of our Constitution and, along with Israel, attacked Iran without a Declaration of War from Congress. Our great sin has resulted in egregious punishment to ourselves and millions of others. There certainly are consequences for our immoral breaking of our own laws.

According to the Bible’s Book of Luke, Chapters 22 and 23, the Roman rulers, Pontius Pilate and Herod the Great, could find no fault in Jesus, but the “elders of the people … both chief priests and scribes” demanded that the Romans “crucify” Jesus. Pilate succumbed to the pressure and killed the blameless Jesus. The powerful Romans were misled to ignore their own law by the Israelis who wanted Jesus killed but did not have the power or legal authority to do so themselves.

Today’s Iranian rulers are corrupt and Iranian citizens are tortured and oppressed. But when it comes to Iranian actions against America that justified our preemptive war, there were none. And if Israel believes Iran deserves destruction, then Israel has the overwhelming military ability to do it alone.

Is Israel to blame for starting the war with Iran? Yes, but Israel is not to blame for President Trump’s decisions to join in the war. Those immoral and self-destructive actions are the responsibility of all of us who are Americans. And, just as declared in the Bible’s Book of Romans, Chapter 6, verse 23, “the wages of sin” have been death and economic disaster. President Trump was convinced by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to have the United States do what Israel did not wish to do on its own.

There were many reasons why no previous U.S. president allowed Israel to convince us to attack Iran. Those reasons are varied and numerous but all fall under the rubric of morality. Can we recover from our transgressions against Iran? Maybe. However, to do so we must first acknowledge we were duped into a great wrong and that that wrong has caused enormous world-wide human and economic loss.

Leaders of character do sometimes fall short of their duty but then admit their sins and seek expiation by reversing course. America’s best chance to return to our pre-Iran War status is to unconditionally withdraw now. A President of character would do so. Will Iran voluntarily reciprocate by agreeing to open the Strait of Hormuz? That is not likely unless America also eases sanctions and compensates Iran for the damage to its civilian infrastructure we and Israel have caused. But Iran’s economy is in chaos and its people are barely getting by. Will Iran seek the path of diplomacy? Perhaps not, but the path we are currently on is not only bad for America and the rest of the world, it is devastating to Iran. Who knows, maybe if we quit bombing them they will accept a reasonable alternative.

You can also follow us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”

A Re-Birth of Independence

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July 04, 1776 was the birth of the United States of America. Our Birth Certificate is the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure those rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Were the men who signed this document naïve? Did they not recognize that these words would ring hollow to slaves, indigenous peoples, women and minorities? Of course not! Our Founders are called founders not because they established the only government in world history that guaranteed these principles, but because they dreamed of building such a nation. And the first giant step was to separate America from the monarchy of Great Britain.

It has taken 250 years of blood, sweat and tears to free many whose rights were only words in 1776. But the Declaration was of an ideal towards which to struggle. Nothing was given; each element of the American Dream has been slowly, and by fits and starts, achieved through reliance on our Founders’ vision and great sacrifice. We have much left to accomplish, but we have steadily progressed toward our ideals of a nation based on true democratic government.

As President Abraham Lincoln declared at Gettysburg in 1863, the United States would have a new birth of freedom and that “…[G]overnment of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth”. The Civil War was the throes of our second birth of independence. It led our nation to those magnanimous ideals of “malice towards none and charity for all” that laid the foundation in the hearts of Americans that guided us to the Marshall Plan after WWII and leadership in humanitarian beneficence throughout the world from 1946 until we began to retreat from kindness into autocracy.

Immediately after WWII, thanks to trillions of dollars of U.S. aid and peaceful persuasion, America went from an isolationist self-centered nation to a beacon of hope across the earth. Then we began to lose our way so that now most of the planet sees us as simply a sycophant of the new country we helped establish in 1948, one we have supported without questioning its immoral hegemony and Zionism. The United States is now linked with Israel in aggressive wars of conquest and repeated genocides. How did we allow ourselves to go from a beacon of freedom to a symbol of oppression?

It began innocently enough with a desire to help Jewish minorities in Europe after WWI and especially WWII. Then Israel fell under the non-democratic Zionist government that took our foreign military and economic aid and repaid us by attacking our ship The Liberty in 1967 where Israel deliberately killed 34 of our sailors and wounded 171 more to hide their espionage upon America.

Next Israel used its Jewish American spy, Jonathon Pollard, to steal our nuclear secrets while we continued to supply Israel with diplomatic cover and aid. Ironically, Pollard is now a citizen of Israel who is running for a seat in the Knesset on a platform of Palestinian elimination from Gaza.

Just as our Declaration of Independence set forth King George III’s transgressions that justified our Revolution, we should acknowledge that Israel has repeatedly led America to engage in foreign wars in Iraq and elsewhere using false allegations that Saddam Hussein and others had weapons of mass destruction. Currently, Zionist Israel has falsely led us into repeatedly attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities while Israel controls the nuclear weapons that it stole from us.

However, the real damage that Israel has wreaked upon America is not just misapplication of the hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. aid, but the damage to our democratic ideals and our hard-won place among nations as a beacon to equal rights for all. The United States was a light to the world, but now is seen as a threat to attack whatever countries Israel wants to conquer. The world now links us to the actions of Israel, which is seen by most of the United Nations as a pariah country.

It is time to remember our Founder’s guidance and return to that great wisdom of President George Washington who warned us in his Farewell Address not to become passionately attached to any other country for, as President Washington said in 1796:

“…[N]othing is more essential than that permanent inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.

It is long past time for the United States to “dissolve the political bands which have connected” America and Israel. We need not treat Israel as an enemy, but we can have a relationship with Israel just as we treat equally all the nations of the world. We need to have a new birth of our ideals and re-take our place as the world’s preeminent democracy. To do so we must cease enabling Zionist Israel to represent to the world we condone or, worse, promote unequal treatment of all humanity.

Should one have questions as to the seriousness of the harm to America from our government’s unqualified loyalty to Israel over loyalty to our ideals, our nation’s top counterterrorism official, Joe Kent, just resigned in protest of the danger posed by Israel’s power over America’s war making policies. The Trump-appointed former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center wrote in his letter of resignation of March 17, 2026:

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

Over 60% of Americans oppose President Trump’s policy on Iran. However, according to President Trump, “Right now I’m at 99% in Israel. I could run for prime minister (of Israel)”. In the United States the President’s overall approval rating is 39% according to a new poll from FOX NEWS. And, President Trump publicly stated he might move to Israel and run for prime minister once his current term ends.

Our passionate attachment to Israel has cost us our hard-earned status as that “Shining City on the Hill” in world opinion. We have allowed ourselves to be misled from our ideals; it is past time for us to reclaim our rightful place among the true democracies of the earth and Declare our Independence from Israel. For although we are 250 years old, we are still too young to die, especially because we abdicated our core values.

For Reference Please See:

            The Passionate Attachment, America’s Involvement with Israel, 1947 to the Present (1992) by George Ball, former Under Secretary of State and formally America’s Ambassador to the United Nations; and,

            Assault on the Liberty (1979) by James M. Ennes, Jr.

You can also follow us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavel gamut”

Regime Regrets

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In 1953 Iran had a democratically elected president, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh was deposed by the United States CIA and Britain’s MI6 because he wanted to change Iran’s position on how Iran’s oil revenues were being unfairly taken, mainly by Britain but also the U.S.A. The CIA and MI6 instigated riots and protests among the Iranian people, then without allowing the Iranian citizens to choose, installed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as their absolute dictator whose repressive and corrupt regime led to a popular revolt in 1979. The citizens who took American hostages did so because they blamed America for deposing their president and imposing the Shah. Then, ironically, the foreign intelligence agencies fomented what became the Iranian Revolution of 1979 that ousted the Shah. That revolution continues today and pits Iran’s current repressive religious leaders against progressive reformists.

Iran’s current political situation is theocratic, not democratic and much of the population lives under repression of rights. Such are the fruits of the various regime changes we have arbitrarily forced on the Iranian people. They know we are to blame and are understandably upset with us, much as we would be if Iran attempted to change our regime by subterfuge and/or assassination. Israel just murdered the leaders of Iran’s government so the Iranians may wonder why they should not seek to respond. Now, President Trump wants another regime change in Iran but he wants to select the new regime leader while Israel wants to turn Iran into the same type of rubble it has wrought in Gaza.

Two hundred and fifty years ago we Colonials sought regime change from King George III’s control. After great strife and hardship our Founders adopted the U.S. Constitution that is the gold standard for regime change. It was and is the light that kept a rag-tag group of British subjects from disintegrating into a mob of warring factions and, while far from a perfect union, led to a country where religion is supposed to have no say in our government and our government is to have no say in religion. Both press and speech are to be unfettered while due process is required to take our lives and our property. When it comes to war, our military is to be only for OUR national defense, not ill-advised adventurism. And that self-defense is to be entered into ONLY with the advice, consent and authorization of our elected representatives in Congress.

We Americans have frequently lost touch with the wisdom that took regime change to freedom. Unfortunately, we have occasionally lost sight of our own experience and convinced ourselves we know how other countries should govern themselves. Such entanglements almost always have resulted in disaster for America and those we deign as inferior to our culture. We normally work our way into these briar patches with no way for either the other countries or ourselves to escape without losing our dignity, our treasure or even our lives. Such is our current stumble into starting a war against Iran because we, once again, have violated our Constitution to our detriment.

If our Constitution is carefully followed, our collective goodwill and good judgment will help us remember to remain humble and to choose right over wrong. To see what is right is what our founding document guides us to. It is then up to us to do what is right in the face of our natural human frailty of choosing to impose our will on others. We should remember we are neither Nazis, Zionists, Marxists, Communists, Fascists, monarchists nor a theocracy and we should not allow ourselves to be misled by any such flawed systems of government. We are a republic based on a constitution and when we fail to follow our Constitution, as in Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Palestine or Iran, they suffer and so do we. Of course, when our country becomes untethered from its core principles, the first issue to be addressed is which principles have been cast aside and why.

Donald Trump based his campaign promises on two worthy goals: avoid offensive wars and improve America’s standard of living. Trump had looked at our foreign military entanglements in the devastating, pointless and baseless wars since WWII and campaigned on their immorality and multi-trillion-dollar cost; Trump was right about our failure to adhere to our core values then. But, as we humans often do, Trump succumbed to the same hubris as some of his predecessors. We Americans are not the saviors we see ourselves to be, but are mere humans who have lost our way because we drifted from our Constitution, core values and our true Volksgeist.

President Trump has fallen victim to what almost all of us has from time to time. When we are cursed with power, we cannot resist abusing it. That is the danger our Founders knew and guarded against 250 years ago. One of those worst dangers is unbridled military power fueled by blind belief in the rightness of a cause and/or the belief in the evilness of someone else.

Donald Trump is caught up in that trap many of us are in danger of falling heir to. He has the reins of immense power and cannot recognize that he is much like a child with an irresistible opportunity of exerting it over virtually defenseless victims. His is the psyche of a boy with a new BB gun and a helpless bird in his sights. It is the immorality of one who simply cannot resist the exhilaration of killing, especially of anyone who asserts their own views and independence.

That is the frailty of human nature our Founders recognized most of us are in danger of should we ever have the opportunity to force our will on others. That is the basis of our Constitution. Our President, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the News Media and each American citizen need the constant reminder that the separation and equality of our three branches of government are the raison d’etre we are nearing our 250th birthday.

Follow us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavegamut”

Ever Again

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Maybe it is because I was born and grew up on an Indian reservation and had many Native American friends, including my Osage Sunday School teacher, but there are things involved in the Gaza Peace Plan claimed by President Trump that remind me of the treaties between the United States government and numerous American Indian peoples. In general, those treaties put Indians out of sight and white people in possession of Indian lands. Although many of those peace plans did contain magnanimous conditions and gratuitous language such as, “As long as the rivers flow, etc.” It turned out those were a secret code that meant, until gold, silver or whatever thing the dominate culture wanted was discovered, say Riviera type real estate along the Mediterranean Sea or lush farmland along the West Bank of the Jordan River or holy sites in East Jerusalem.

While the Zionists of Israel assert the destruction and occupation of Gaza was a response to an attack by Hamas, Palestinians believe the initiation of the current invasion by Israel began in 1917, resulting in a Nakba (a catastrophe) in 1948 and became a full-blown Israeli occupation in 1967 that was exacerbated in 1973 and continues to today. For many Palestinians, October 7, 2023 was an act of resistance to Zionist occupation and oppression.

Many Jewish people feel a deep connection to that part of the world called Palestine. The reasons are historical and cultural and, for most, do not require a genocide of the original inhabitants. However, as with many non-Native Americans in the United States from 1492 until contemporary times who believed Indians were an impediment to Manifest Destiny, many Zionists see Palestinians the same way.

Peace negotiations in such an atmosphere may bring a momentary pause, but the conflict will never resolve until all Palestinians are eliminated or they have their own, fully functioning and self-governing state. It is a moral imperative upon all of us to recognize this reality and guarantee Palestine’s establishment. President Trump’s Peace Plan is a poorly disguised effort to accomplish only Israel’s objectives. A true, lasting peace in the Middle East must start by the U.S.A. recognizing the autonomous, independent, self-governing and self-securing State of Palestine along the borders set forth in 1948. If President Trump makes such a declaration, a real peace process can succeed. If not, the current peace plan is a chimera designed to accomplish Israel’s dreams of a country “from the river to the sea” without any Palestinians but one in eternal turmoil with its neighbors.

As our American Founders discovered, being some other country’s colonies leads to permanent second-class status and “taxation without representation”. America, better than most of the 157 countries that have already officially recognized the State of Palestine, should recognize President Trump’s peace plan “… is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…” but more endless conflict. It is like ice cream on a hot day, momentarily sweet and cool, but soon melted into a faint memory and maybe a sop to the forgotten “noble savages” whose aspiration for freedom and independence have gone the way of the Little Big Horn and the Trail of Tears. Or for Palestinians, the Nakba and genocide.

 

Another Trail of Tears

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Israel’s actions in Palestine’s designated future capital, East Jerusalem, and in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, are a conundrum to many Americans. How can a country that arose from the ashes of the Jewish holocaust of World War II inflict similar atrocities on its neighbors? A related mystery is why the United States enables and abets Israel’s actions? In a country born out of occupation and oppression from our closely aligned cultural “First Cousins”, we yearned to breathe free. This is much as the Jews and their first cousins, the Arabs, are embroiled today.

Jews, Arabs and Muslims are intertwined by history, genetics, geography and religion. Hebrews look to the Torah, much of which is reflected in the Arab and Muslim culture and beliefs via the Quran. Religion is visceral to many Jews and Muslims who call themselves People of the Book. We Americans were similarly bound together with Great Britain. Christian religious beliefs were and are integral to each people’s psyche and Volksgeist. America’s Colonists and Revolutionaries as well as the people of Great Britain found inspiration and justification for their actions from The Book. The Book still provides much of the reason many Israelis want to expand their territory. And The Book provides much of the reason given by many Americans for supporting Israel’s actions.

Manifest Destiny divined from the Bible and Zionism with reference to the Torah have numerous similarities with one another and with the tenants of the Quran. There are countless distinctions in the Torah, the New Testament and the Quran. However, the adherents of all three see themselves as believing in the same god but with different rituals for each faith and with dizzying variations of beliefs within each faith.

Christians, Jews and Muslims all profess a belief in justice, equality and a version of the Golden Rule. It has been demonstrated countless times that members of each group turn to their faith to support their actions that are sometimes diametrically opposed to their professed faith. This phenomenon has occurred repeatedly over many years. In America, many people of European descent drew upon their god for divining guidance each time they saw Native Americans as obstacles to territorial expansion. Manifest Destiny was often a deeply ingrained belief that justified the desires of the powerful; the Trail of Tears was one of many such divine tragedies.

In her book When the Wolf Came, Mary Jane Warde cites the account from a survivor of the forced removal from the Native Americans’ homes and traditional lands in the eastern states to Indian Territory. Sallie Forney, who was a member of the Muskogee-Creek tribe, described her experience:

“The command for a removal came unexpectedly upon most of us. There was the time that we noticed that several overloaded wagons were passing our home, yet we did not grasp the meaning. However, it was not long until we found out the reason. Wagons stopped at our homes and the men in charge commanded us to gather what few belongings could be crowded into the wagon. We were to be taken away and leave our homes never to return This was just the beginning of much weeping and heartaches.

…

Many fell by the wayside, too faint with hunger or too weak to keep up with the rest. The aged, feeble, and sick were left to perish by the wayside.”

One of the four carvings of U.S. presidents on Mount Rushmore is of Theodore Roosevelt who is quoted by writer Alysa Landry as having said in a January 1886 speech in New York City:

“I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are. And I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”

Such a cavalier attitude by an American President towards Native Americans sounds remarkedly similar to the Zionists’ view and actions toward Palestinians today. One might wonder if much of America’s support for Israel’s actions arises from a subconscious conflation of Native Americans and Palestinians with America’s faith in Manifest Destiny being morphed out of a Chosen People cultural myth.

It is difficult for us to do the right thing in Palestine when we built our empire using the same tactics the Zionists are using. However, we owe it to “ourselves and our posterity” to not aid and abet another Trail of Tears in Palestine. We certainly sinned ourselves, but we can partially atone by helping to alleviate the great Nakba being wrought by Israel’s Zionists today.

All In The Family

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The Book of Ruth has four pages. One paragraph of one page is perhaps the Bible’s most often recited passage by brides and grooms: 

“Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you;
For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people, and your God my God;
Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried.”

Ruth 1:16-17

These beautiful promises were made by Ruth to her mother-in-law Naomi. The family and cultural inter-connections are closely intertwined. Ironically, Naomi, her husband, Elimelech, and their two sons, Mahlou and Chilion, were originally Ephrathites who lived in Bethlehem in Judah, what is now not only the birthplace of Jesus but also Palestine. A further historical irony is that just as today there is famine in Gaza, part of Palestine, in Naomi family’s time “the judges” (the government?) “ruled there was a famine in the land”. So, Naomi and her family left Bethlehem and “sojourned” to the country of Moab that was in what is now the country of Jordan.

Naomi’s sons both married Moabite women but then both sons and Elimelech died. Thereafter, times were hard for Naomi and her daughters-in-law when Naomi heard that, “the Lord had visited his people (in Bethlehem) and given them food”. So, Naomi, Ruth and Orpah decided to seek new lives in Bethlehem. While Orpah turned back to Moab, Naomi and Ruth ventured on to Bethlehem where Naomi’s husband still had a wealthy Israeli kinsman named Boaz. Ruth and Boaz eventually married and had a son named Obed. Obed fathered Jesse who fathered Israel’s most famous king, David. The genetics of the Israeli-Palestinian Naomi, the Moabite (Jordanian) Ruth, the Israeli-Palestinian Boaz and the Israeli King David are closely related. They are all of Semitic culture and history and are all deeply embedded in the general genealogy and geography of the area. In essence, they are all related, leading to possible fratricide or genocide if indiscriminate slaughter should occur.

Yet, according to many authorities that is exactly what the Zionists of Israel are doing today as a matter of government policy. As former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, recently stated in an interview on BBC, what Israel is doing in Gaza is, “very close to a war crime”. And more evidence of Israel’s intent comes from Israeli Cabinet Members, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who have publicly called for the “conquest and depopulation of Gaza”.

More graphically, as recently reported in The Washington Post’s World View Newsletter by reporter Ishaan Tharoor, former Israeli Defense Force general and current head of the Democrats Party in Israel, Yair Golan, stated:

“Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state among nations if it doesn’t return to behaving like a sane country. A sane country doesn’t engage in fighting against civilians, doesn’t kill babies as a hobby and doesn’t set the expulsion of a population as a goal.” 

As for America, with the cooperation of Egypt and other allies, we should immediately force massive amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza through Egypt. America should also guarantee the accessibility and safety of impartial international journalists into Gaza so the world can witness the facts on the ground. And, the immediate cessation of America’s enablement of the killing and destruction by Israel in Gaza should be a priority.

Not only are the descendants of Ruth and Naomi responsible for and entitled to humane treatment, the United States, as part of the human family, must help assure such outcomes.