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A rabbi, a priest, an imam walk into a…

Updated: Apr 16

Drawn on April 14, 2024 | Published from Miami |

Where's the punchline?
A rabbi, a priest, an imam walk into a…

What sounds like the set up to a morbid punchline is, in actuality, the chief obstacle of a lingering cataclysmic problem equally as real as it is ignored.


There is a catastrophe unfolding under the blazing beams of the Oriental desert sun. One where a densely tangled religious web chokes the immortal souls of every sinner to have ever graced the surface of planet Earth.


Superseding issues of colony, armament, resources and the likes, the debate over Israel’s place in the Middle East is fundamentally built on a fragmented tale about an orphan who, after having spoken to a hot plant 3500 years ago, was told to meander his way through a desert and pitch his tent on the only patch of land in the region virtually devoid of oil [1] — a condition the Maccabees were all too familiar with. I speak of course of Moses, his burning bush, and the twoscore-year-long journey that could have lasted a lot less time had God thrown in a compass along with the almighty tablets.


Today, a yet borderless state is longitudinally split at the nexus called Qubbat as-Sakhrah (The Dome of the Rock) — an extant Byzantine-Islamic Synamorch (Synagogue-Mosque-Church) that sits like a monolithic three-layered pastry on the blurry line “between” Israel and Palestine. The octagonal shrine’s 7th Century stone base, ceramic blue belt, and gold leaf dome is a tricolor vertical axis mundus that symbolically telegraphs the connection between the underworld, the land of the living, and God. Sounds nice. This trinity, however, immaculately incarnates a more macabre horizontal division between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as well; with each of them chasing a revelation, chasing a finality.


"Today I have perfected your religion for you, completed My blessing upon you, and chosen as your religion {Islam}"[2]

— The archangel Jibrīl delivering Allah's message to Muhammad, allegedly in 610 A.D..



This phenomenon is not isolated to sands East of the Mediterranean. America’s involvement in the conflict is unavoidable, where its many Christians are undeniably far from neutral observers. Christianity’s historic animosity toward Judaism — strongly rooted in the charge of deicide — is no secret. Yet American Christians have set aside this theological grudge to back the Zionist cause. For them, Zionism is key to a larger prophecy: the return of Jesus, the onset of the rapture, and the eradication of the Hebrew tribe can only occur when all Jews are gathered in one place. The venue of choice is Israel, the booze is blood, and paradise awaits.


Indeed the monotheistic consecration connection has made Christian Zionism a powerful force, with no small percentage of American voters supporting Israel. Evangelicals, in particular, numbering some 82 million strong [3], are leading this charge. This peculiar alignment between Christian Zionists and Orthodox Jews explains the American Right’s seemingly paradoxical embrace of the Jewish state.


In this religious pretzel, American Christian Nationalists are often more fanatically Zionist than many American Jews. This status quo also enables monsters like Donald Trump to strategically pander to both Zionists and anti-Semites with impunity; thinly veiling threats to blame his potential political defeat in the 2024 Presidential Election on the failures of American Jews [4]. By campaigning on Zionism, Republicans ironically appeal to both extremes — fostering anti-Semitic aggression against non-Zionist Jews while gleefully courting Zionists of all colors. The Republican candidate's rhetoric plays directly into this, preparing right-wing sycophants for pogroms as he guilts less-extreme Jews into supporting his bid for control of the World's most powerful office. Bottom line, for right-wing Christian Zionists, compassion for Jewish existence stops short on the eve of Armageddon. After that, the transaction ceases and all bets are off. The convoluted logic of the Middle Eastern war is incisively looped through the North American continent, knotting itself tightly around U.S. politics, and superstitiously skewing its foreign policy toward the conflict at large.


To be fair, the fatigued sonnet condemning modern Western Imperialism as solely responsible for Middle Eastern misery underscores, to me at least, how people today seem just as clueless as Britain was back when the Partition Resolution was implemented in May of 1948 [5]. Crazy, isn't it, to think that perhaps the crisis began precisely because religion was ignored in the first place? Would it not be in our best interests to avoid making that same mistake when trying to resolve the issue now?


This unsettling observation highlights a great challenge we must each face in life — the test of personal humility. Indeed, this conflict sieges uncomfortably hard-hitting truths that, if neglected, effectively forfeits our right to decry the bloodshed:


Judaism, a group of battered people with everything to lose, culturally rooted in the demented execrations of a hallucinating [6], incestuous [7], Bronze-age desert warlord [8], still chooses to leverage a borderless Israel to push its expansionist ambitions ever outward while facing-down enemies who use human shields the size of city blocks.

Islam, a final-solution sect with a chip on its shoulder for non-conformists, spiritually inspired by the rantings of a 7th Century Bedouin pedophile [9], is keen on reducing Jewish Israel into cloudy plumes of billowing body-parts and pulverized concrete for having set up shop in what most Muslims still call Palestine from the river to the sea.

Christianity, especially the Evangelical kind, a clique literally dying to witness the reincarnation of its messiah and having lost its bid for Jerusalem in the Crusades [10], now sees the establishment of a Jewish state and the ensuing war as a possible realization of its terrifying apocalyptic beliefs [11] — a self fulfilling prophecy contingent on mass destruction dwarfing in scale genocides like the one Noah sailed through on his arc.


Christianity, Islam, and Judaism remain locked in their respective pursuits, showing little sign of relenting. As each side's delusions of achieving peace through total obliteration diametrically fuel a common drive toward a post-Earth paradise, would the dispute truly end if either side were to possess the world’s resources in equal parts — land, energy, water, food, and more?


Despite their cultural richness, yearning for the end of days is the signature rancid aroma of fanatical scriptural sadomasochism that astringently fills every crevice of society like a peace-eroding solvent. Waiting millennia for total deliverance from life has made the Abrahamic triad impatient. The gargantuan threat from these death-cults can no longer be dismissed as mere philosophical dispute. The thermonuclear button is finally within reach of pontiff-espousing heads of state, which leads me to wonder: is it perhaps not best to just leave the punchline alone?


Like a good joke that writes itself, sometimes a simple cartoon is all you need.


A rabbi, a priest, and an imam walk into a bar…



[1] Though recent offshore discoveries may have deepened the complexities of the crisis.


[2] Haleem, A. (2008) ‘Al-Ma’idah’, in The Qu’ran. Oxford University Press, p. āyah 3. [3] Religious landscape study (2015) Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project. Available at: https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/ (Accessed: September 2024).

Approximately:

  • 25 % Evangelical Protestant (82 MILLION certified Zionists)

  • 14.7% Mainline Protestant (all bets are off here... really depends on the congregation)

  • 6.5% Black Protestant (tends to dip into the evangelical PoV)

  • 20.8% Catholic (not typically zionist)

  • 1.6% Mormon (tends to dip into the evangelical PoV)

  • 1.4% other… You’re looking at a ~70% Christian USA.

Where about ~35 to 40% of all non-evangelicals trend toward more literal biblical interpretations. (Their take on New Earth Creationism is a good tell for where they stand)


[4] Magid, J. (September 20, 2024) Trump: If I lose election, Jewish people will ‘have a lot to do with’ it | The Times of Israel, Times of Israel. Available at: https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-if-i-lose-election-jewish-people-will-have-a-lot-to-do-with-it/ (Accessed: 2024).


[5] Creation of Israel, 1948 (no date) U.S. Department of State  | Offices of The Historian. Available at: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel#:~:text=On%20November%2029%2C%201947%20the,mandate%20was%20scheduled%20to%20end. (Accessed: 2024).


[6] (NIV & King James Bible, n.d.): Exodus 3:2-3. [7] (King James, n.d.): Genesis 5:4-32 [8] (King James, n.d.): 1 Samuel 15:1-9


[9] Hadith – Book Of Merits Of The Helpers In Madinah (Ansaar) - Sahih Al-Bukhari, Book 63, Hadith 120. The prophet was gifted A’isha when she was only 6 years old. The marriage consummation would have happened just three years later, when she was 9.


[10] From 1095 AD – 1291 AD


[11] Christian destiny:

All audio is AI generated.

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