Predicting pogroms in the Ukraine is a safe way to get a prophet’s reputation. No other nation has exterminated so many Jews.

Slavs destroyed the Khazar Kingdom though assimilated much of its culture; the Russian language is heavily rooted in Hebrew.

In the 17th century, Bogdan Khmelnitsky’s hordes massacred between 100,000 and 250,000 Jews with a brutality unknown even at the time. Ukrainian historians claim his massacres were somehow related to alleged abuses of Jewish tax administrators and liquor sellers. Wow! As if most of them were Jewish, as if there were more than a few hundred Jews doing those jobs, as if the drunkard population resented tavern keepers. Jews were not tax farmers in scores of European countries, yet Christians killed them. Khmelnitsky is a hero of modern Ukraine, a country showered by US attention, welcomed by Israel, and aspiring to EU membership. Thousands of Ukrainians have received the government’s Bogdan Khmelnitsky medal. Schoolchildren learn from approving teachers of his struggle against the Jews who oppressed poor Ukrainian masses. In the 18th century, Pylyp Orlyk, Ukrainian warlord and a later convert to Islam, wrote a constitution. Ukrainian students now learn it as an early example of democratic liberalism. Indeed. I won’t repeat what the constitution says about the Jews.

Pogroms continued frequently, but tremendously increased in number and scope since the late 19th century. Liberation movement provoked politically motivated pogroms from 1905. Jews,who were banned from agriculture and did not join proletariat, became class enemies of Ukrainians - another good reason to kill us.

Socialist Revolution of 1917 pulled down even the nominal legislative safeguards against murder of Jews. Ukrainian warlords fought each other, but agreed on one point - kill the Jews. Meet Simon Petlyura, another hero of modern Ukraine. The U.S.-supported Ukrainian president passed executive order that requires regional authorities to build monuments to Petlyura and name streets after him. Curiously, Ukraine signed the European Convention on the International Validity ofCriminal Judgments. In 1926, French court acquitted a Jew who killed Petlyura on the grounds unprecedented in modern justice - the Jew, the court decided, justly avenged his family murdered by Petlyura’s troops. Thus, the Ukrainian hero turns out a convicted mass murderer. Another 250 thousand Jews killed in the extermination campaign larger than any that took place before.

Then came the Nazis. Independent Ukraine took compensation from Germany for the murdered Jews. Germans, sure, organized the extermination, but Ukrainians have carried it out. Queasily hypocritical Ukrainian government holds annual memorial parties at Babyi Yar, a notorious site of mass murder. No one admits that the executioners were Ukrainians, or that the Ukrainians reported Jews to the Nazis and cheered when Jews were marched to death.

the government always sanctioned and often encouraged Ukrainian pogroms. In 1905, police disarmed Jewish self-defense units to clear the path for Ukrainian murderers into Jewish quarters. Current president and major leaders keep close friendship with virulently anti-Semitic Ukrainian nationalists. Jewish barons add to the popular hatred. Ukraine is a poor country, but they steal, cheat on taxes, privatize state assets for pennies, and push their way into parliament. Jewish mayors came to power in rigged elections, and extort enormous bribes from local entrepreneurs, embezzle, and oppress the people. Gentile officials do likewise, but Jews are more visible.

No hand combat training or light firearms will protect Ukrainian Jews. Poor fellows, why do they stay there for certain death?

I’m often asked that surprising question. Perhaps people think I promote hatred which I definitely do not do. Many, perhaps most of my friends are gentiles, many are Arabs. I do have a bigger problem with non-observant Jews than with reasonably Noahide gentiles.

I do suggest some strong measures against the Jews’ enemies which happen now to be Muslim, though a century ago were Christian, and twenty-two centuries ago were gentilized Jews. The measures, however, stem from a rational clash of interests, not from irrational hatred.

It is easy to fish up anti-Gentile pronouncements in the Talmud. Similarly, take a few dozen books by Christian intellectuals, and you will surely find a several hundred anti-semitic remarks. Maimonides seemingly despised gentiles, but as a doctor he cured them.

Keep in mind the rhetorical conventions of the time. Political correctness was unknown until recently, and people competed by stigmatizing their opponents and calling them names. John Chrysostom wrote very hatefully about Jews, yet he apparently had many rabbi friends.

People are often contemptuous of those whose ethics are narrower than theirs. You won’t think too highly of someone eating with only a spoon at a restaurant table nearby while you perform elaborate rites with several changes of forks and knives. Similarly, Jews whose ethics are very elaborate may be less than fond of gentiles. That is nothing like hatred.

Calling Orthodox rabbis religious fundamentalists is a misnomer. They are innovators. The religion of the Torah is first of all practical. The authors of the priestly source went out of their way to simplify observances and to part with complex pagan superstitions and rites. The law was so simple that the Hebrews lived according to it in the Sinai steppes.

Can you observe the rabbinical law in primitive conditions? Surely, not. Observances became minute and intricate, and rabbinical rites verged on idolatry. What is the difference between kissing statues in churches and blowing kisses to mezuzot? Would you expect nomadic Hebrews to keep a separate set of Pesach utensils? They didn’t pray as we do.

Jews who observe the rabbinical law shut themselves in virtual monastery, though Judaism was emphatically given for life in the material world. They bound themselves with myriad rules often far removed from the Torah. The logical exercises the sages used to arrive at Talmudic rules are often at odds with the common sense.

The Oral Law was given on Sinai alongside the tablets… Sadducees did not know that, nor did the Qumranites. Given the differences between the schools of Hillel and Shammai, the mishnaic law emerged in their time. The rabbis seem fundamentalist now, but in historical perspective they are innovators - very liberal innovators, to put it mildly. The concept of Massorah accepts that rabbinic law greatly and dubiously expands the commandments, but rationalizes the expansion as a wall against inadvertent violations. One can hardly see a house over such wall. The house is great, but the wall is too far from it.

Rabbinism undermines Jewish identity. Many people see the rabbinical law as too cumbersome, take it for real Judaism, and abandon both. They could observe basic prohibitions set in the Torah, and remain good Jews.The law was intended as knowable by all people. Talmud made the law an exclusive pond of scholars. All Jews were made the nation of priests, not a few rabbis.
Don’t run into abominations of reconstructing or reforming Judaism. The teaching of Torah is simple, powerful, and eternal. But it should not be equated with rabbinism. Jews must return to the true fundamentals of our religion.

Some of our supporters reportedly have brought down the stormfront.org website several times. I have never requested the attacks, though I do suggest pulling down hostile websites in Samson Blinded. Is, however, stormfront really hostile?

One thing I do not accept about stormfront is their Nazi symbolism; even the name stormfront stinks. Everything about the Nazis is too personal for me to tolerate. Whatever the secular law says, Nazism must be suppressed by any means. True, the current Nazism does not pass the clear and present danger threshold for suppressing free speech. Nazi speech should be suppressed on different grounds: vengeance. I am a Jew; I believe in an eye for an eye in its original sense, not the gibberish of just compensation, and I fully subscribe to vengeance. Nazi speech and everything else must be suppressed.

Nazism, however, is peripheral to white supremacists, and I wonder why they insist on the hollow symbolism. Why is it hollow? Because they will object to the real Nazism of Aryan supremacy. American whites belong to the ethnic mix the real Nazis despised. Psychologists can study the white supremacists’ odd choice of Nazism as ethnically mindful ideology, but the fact is, they are not really Nazis. Do we have a problem with ethnically agitated radicals? Not at all, unless they have a problem with the Jews. In the Samson Blinded, I argue for rapprochement with right nationalists in the West against Islamic cultural influx. The radicals need an enemy, and if not the Islamic culture, the enemy would be the Jews. As a Jew who wants Israel a Jewish state, I understand why the alien crowds frustrate white supremacists. Jews want to live without Arabs, and I understand that some whites want to live separately. The American situation is very different from Israeli: we only need to move Israeli Arabs 30 miles away to live in their own state, while African Americans have nowhere to go. The population figures in America are also very different from Israel’s. Besides, there is a host of moral issues, like considerable integration of Blacks in the society, intermarriages, and the fact that their ancestors were forcibly brought to America. I don’t see how American white supremacists can reasonably attain their ethnically conscious society. Probably, the concerned whites will have to move away and form their own communities. I am not an expert in the white movement, and do not know whether it is aggressive to people of different color or merely posits a problem and seeks a way to separate itself into culturally homogenous society. I would find the former unacceptable and the latter interesting.

Odd as it may sound for a Machiavellian rationalist, I despise hypocrisy. Not for any moral reason, though, but because hypocrisy is an art few public figures are up to. Like many good things, hypocrisy badly done is counterproductive.

I have listened for some time to the PR screams about Darfur and was recently approached to participate. I won’t.
Sudan is Egypt’s enemy. Israel must strengthen Sudan to drain Egypt in the arms race. To undermine Sudan’s government is stupid for Israel.

Lies work for immediate ends, but don’t last. Jewish organizations whose baron-like leaders don’t understand mob mentality, think they can fake compassion. They cannot. Mobs quickly sense lies. To help Darfur, supply arms to JEM and airlift food over Janjaweed cordons. That would build the world’s goodwill for Israel; half-hearted pronouncements will not do. But why Darfur? The ostensible victims launched the conflict by attacking government installations. Fur tribe was not oppressed in Sudan, much of whose army was drawn from Darfur. The conflict is centuries-old, and both sides intermittently slaughter each other. It is not even clear what part of the death toll relates to ethnic cleansing rather than natural circumstances of exploding population in a poor region. The destroyed villages account for thousands of deaths, not hundreds of thousands.The atrocities in Darfur are moderate by African standards. Civilized nations lost dozens of millions of people in the twentieth century, and have no moral stance to be the world’s nanny. Power struggles go on throughout history, and will continue. They are always bloody. We might stop immense atrocities, like in Rwanda, but hardly the ongoing conflicts like in Darfur. On the contrary, neither the West, nor Israel cared about Rwanda, and the concern about Darfur stems from mistake.The inept decision-makers found a suitable atrocity of Arab Muslims against other people, and trumpeted it. Oops, Janjaweed are not strictly Arab. Oops, Janjaweed are virulently anti-Islamic, and routinely deface mosques and burn Qurans. Just why should we oppose anti-Islamic forces? Forget Darfur and mind your own business.

America, a beacon to the nations, took its ideal role seriously. It is a dangerous when the interests of idealists and of the corrupt political-business establishment converge. Such convergences have broken states before and threaten the U.S. now.
Idealists wanted to “search for distant monsters” and rectify all wrongs. Since no one is perfect, that involves supporting “our SOBs against theirs.”

Corrupt establishment wants more weapons, more oil service contracts, and higher (not lower, as many commentators assert) oil prices. Most importantly, it wants power and in that quest for power, the American political-military-industrial complex allies itself with idealists who want a paternalistic umbrella for the entire world. Idealists, they do not care about minor practical issues: American lives and American money.

Idealism is necessarily superficial, and accepts symbols in lieu of reality, resembling the dichotomy of idols versus divine. The idols of American idealism are elections, free speech, and market economy. In the third world, however, elections are inevitably rigged, free speech is accessible only through government and oligarchic media, and market economy means corruption. The establishment’s realists satisfy the idealists’ appetites in exchange for moralistic support, and produce the idols. Exacerbated by misunderstanding of local affairs and intricacies of often fragile balance of power, such approach destroys stable, if not democratic societies, and perpetuates strife there.

Idealism relies on maxims, and is counterproductive in politics which balances the goals. Democratic elections are good when they lure terrorist groups from underground into the corrupt political environment, and bad when they hand power to hostile groups. Torture is condemnable when applied indiscriminately, and unavoidable when dealing with terrorist suspects in violent countries. Idealists drive morals over the edge, and cobble the road to hell with democratic pronouncements; the establishment seizes the opportunity for larger role in failing foreign states. When situation becomes intolerable, money can no longer be made in countries plunged in civil war, and international prestige and credibility suffer instead of being asserted by intervention, America withdraws.

Idealists side with poor and weak. Disregarding the macro picture of minuscule Israel versus the world of Islam, idealists see only the microlevel, Israel versus hapless Palestinians. Idealists influence American policy and extort concessions from the establishment which hides its interests behind their ideals. Idealists exert indirect influence by permeating political left: idealists need government regulation to enforce their unworkable policies, and leftists need credibility of the ideals to cover their thrust for material redistribution.

During the Cold War, America involved itself in the Middle East not to protect oil supply, but to contain the Soviet threat. (Since the Soviets did not intend to attack America, “red plague” is a better term than “Soviet threat.” America nobly opposed hostile and abominable ideology rather than conducted military cooperation oddly peripheral to its national interest.) Protection of oil sources rationalized the particular instance of containment. America similarly opposed Soviet expansion in many places which lack oil.

America firmly prohibited Israeli-Franco-British (justified) aggression against Egypt in 1956, and stopped Israeli incursion into Egypt in 1967. Both cases did not relate to oil. America airlifted weapons to Israel in closing days of the 1973 war to counter the Soviet supplies to Egypt, not because of oil. America after Carter supported the demands of Palestinians who have no oil, and precluded Israel from finishing the conflict through their expulsion.

American support for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war stemmed from childish insult: Ayatollah removed a friendly ruler. Oil-wise, it made more sense for the U.S. to ally itself with Iran which intended no interruption of oil deliveries. America later rejected the Iranian tentative gesture of major oil concession to Conoco.

America fought for Kuwait against Iraq even though Saddam was friendly to the U.S. at the time, subservient to a degree, and would have continued exporting Kuwaiti oil. Kuwait, on the contrary, is unfriendly to the U.S. to the extent of allowing financial flows to Al Qaeda, and allowing its citizens to work as the terrorist group’s spokesmen. Kuwait always supported OPEC’s moves rather than leaving the cartel and selling oil to America at a more reasonable price, something that Saddam was seemingly willing to do. Kuwaiti oil supply is small and irrelevant to the U.S. After defending Kuwait, America did nothing to control its oil supply, but allowed the price to rise. No other country would bow down to price extortion by its protectorate.

The U.S. can lower the oil price by breaking OPEC through legal action in several countries, trade sanctions, boycott, separate arrangements with non-Muslim producers, opening the American conserved fields, and dealing with Russian suppliers. America does none of that. The Middle East involvement is not about securing inexpensive oil sources for American or global economy, but about hegemony, business interests, and idealism.

With the demise of the USSR, America has no business of containment, and no reason to maintain its involvement in the Middle East. That is, no morally acceptable reason. Thus, we hear frenzy of explanations: secure oil supply, low oil prices, promoting democracy, stopping atrocities, and fighting terrorism.

Europeans, used to losses, go with a trend; America, used to victories, often goes against it. Thus the European tendency of treating Muslim regimes as black boxes, or rather gas stations: no one cares what goes on inside those states, as long as oil flows out. IncreasingMuslim countries must supply oil without interruption to feed their bustling populations.
Europeans can deal with Middle East’s oil regimes without American support. It makes no difference for Britain, France, or Germany whether to buy Kuwaiti oil from al-Sabah or al-Hussein.

The professed U.S. support for Israel is of the same moralizing stock as fostering democracy: a politically acceptable cover for American business and power interests.

America sells more arms to Muslims than to Israel. America allowed Egypt to develop nuclear technology, and politically protected it against Israeli attack on nuclear facilities. Given the number of regime changes and policy swings in Egypt in the last half-century, and considering the strength of Islamist factions, only temporarily suppressed by police, Egyptian nuclear weapons will wind up in America and Israel. The U.S military guarantee allows Israeli government to slip into delusional cowardice instead of taking action against nuclear proliferators. The guarantee is worthless: recall South Vietnam, the American-instigated revolt in Czechoslovakia, or many other cases when major powers reneged on mutual defense treaties.

America directly fought for Kuwait - something it never did for Israel even in the critical 1948 war or in the opening days of the 1973 war.

America gives much more aid to Muslims than to Israel. The ratio of American aid to GDP is many times higher for Palestine than for Israel. American military and financial assistance is thus much more significant to Arabs than to Israel, and therefore detrimental overall to Israel. 3bn aid, little adjusted since 1970s, is very modest compared to Israeli GDP, especially considering skyrocketing cost of American weapons. Israel can live without that aid, as she did before the Camp David. Osrael can offset the loss of American aid by abandoning socialism and allowing the economy to take off. Israel does not depend on American aid to retain military edge: she won all her wars on her own; the 1973 airlift came too late. Even if Israel had to tighten her budget when American aid ends, that would be worthwhile; the American money is politically detrimental and morally offensive.
America continuously twisted hands of Israeli governments, and prevented them from pursuing militarily efficient strategies: in 1956, 1967, 1973, and with the Palestinians. American alliance with Jordan doesn’t let Israel to relocate her Arabs into Jordan, and creates major demographic problem for Jewish state.

Israeli lobby in America is nowhere as powerful as Muslim lobby. Jewish lobbying is vociferous and hollow; Arab - backed by real money. Saudis alone buy more American politicians than the Jews influence indirectly. Professed support for Israel is a convenient cover for American shady dealings with Arabs. Had the Jews have considerable influence on the U.S. government, they would concentrate on a single issue: the American acceptance of Greater Israel. The only reason the U.S. does not pressure Israel to accept Palestinian demands immediately is that other Arabs do not care about Palestinians, and do not lobby for them. Arab rulers pay only lip service to the Palestinian issue. No ruler is angry with the U.S. for the support of Israel - Arabs well understand treachery, double-dealing, and power which are incidentally the basis of politics. Other Arabs want the Palestinian conflict - to enjoy foreign attention and to have an external enemy for their people. Arabs lobby their real demands - the U.S. acquiescence to the OPEC racket above all.

The U.S. political assistance to Israel is mostly limited to vetoing UN resolutions. That is good, but even absent the American support, sanctions would hardly be applied against Jewish state. Germany certainly will not enforce them, thus creating a major loophole. America preserves the UN credibility by vetoing its resolutions. If Israel sets precedent of avoiding the sanctions, the UN would be unable to control the Muslims even nominally. Israel’s disregard of the UN resolutions already set dangerous precedent, and extending it to the sanctions is just not feasible for the U.S. Other countries appreciate American support for Israel in the Security Council: the assured American veto allows Russia to play Arab supporter and Muslim members of the UN to show themselves strong and radical without fear of escalation.

American involvement in the Middle East prolonged conflicts by destabilizing the situation (elephant-in-a-shop scenario), insisting on politically correct (thus inefficient) approaches, and aiding both sides (preventing the peace of exhaustion).

American political problems in Muslim countries stem from the fact that America is the only vent allowed there. There is a Soviet joke of a Russian countering an American’s boast that he can criticize his president in front of the White House, “So what? I can criticize your president at the Red Square!” Islamic societies undergo simultaneous structural crises of opening, industrialization, breakdown of paternalistic social framework, loss of traditional religious values, youth bulge and class struggle. Repressive societies vent their discontent on external enemies. Thus the hatred of Israel. The hatred, however, is superficial. Many Muslims I spoke with soften in minutes. Muslims hate the US not for support of Israel or the Iraqi war; few Muslims care about Palestinians or Iraqis. Muslims are jealous of the U.S. like proletarians were jealous of bourgeoisie. Unlike proletarians, Muslims are lucky to have their adversary clearly defined: Americans live in a separate country with distinct culture, and jealousy potently combines with xenophobia. America confirms Muslims in their xenophobia by real or imagined support of Israel against their brethren. Israel provides rationalization of anti-American feelings, but do not cause them. Absent of Israel, Muslims would hate the U.S. for satellite broadcasts, McDonald’s abroad, or for refusing polygamy to the American Muslims.

Even rich Muslim societies hate America because their discontent is largely spiritual, and stems from dissolution of previously firm values. The discontent will not go away even if the U.S. miraculously industrializes Muslim countries and makes them affluent which is anyway impossible for the lack of work and education ethics. Hatred is channeled to highly visible, symbolic object. America, a beacon, draws Muslim hatredThat hatred is now concentrated on a single issue: Israel; without Israel, American problems with Muslims will become many. Concentrated opposition is easier to counter than dissipated enmity; America would not be better off if Muslims claim hundreds of wrongs instead of the one.

If our principles sound racist, they are—in the garbled world of Newspeak. It is wrong to call racist both people who enslaved and lynched blacks and Jews who just want to live peaceably in their minuscule state without hostile aliens.
No one is really ethnically blind; most people dislike this or that group. Mere dislike is harmless. Active repression is disgusting. Muslims can enjoy every benefit in their own state right across the Israeli border.

People do not want to live together, even with people they love; children grow up and move out of their parents’ houses. Much less do we want to live with people different from us. The Jewish raison d’etre is to be different from others. Shouldt not Jews have their own house?

Somehow, I have never articulated our principles. Rational approach seems a sufficiently clear term: no ideological hubris, no moralizing, read the world as it is—like it or not.

Many people, however, keep asking me to clarify the platform. I’m not really a constitutionalist, but these three principles should work:

A Jew is anyone who tries to follow the Torah as he or she honestly understands it. He may or may not agree with the rabbis. Or, more simply, a Jew is someone who will be killed as a Jew in pogroms.

Israel is a state for Jews and is not ethnically blind.

Israel’s security must be achieved even at the cost of killing her enemies and possibly losing some Jews. The number of Jewish casualties must be minimized within reason.