Are Trump's Claims of 2020 Election Fraud Really False?

 

Deus Vult: Onward, Trumpian Soldiers

Many Americans have reacted with disbelief to Trump’s cabinet picks. Matthew Gaetz, a man under a congressional ethics investigation for sex trafficking as Attorney General?  RFK Jr, the man who accused an innocent African American man of murder, as Secretary of Health and Human Services?  Even worse than these picks, though, is the decision to appoint Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel. Both men have swallowed the potent Kool Aid of Christian Zionism, an ideology that blends ethnic nationalism (for Israelis) and religious fanaticism. This ideology, when combined with their total lack of relevant qualifications to hold these posts, threatens the world with an even wider war than the one already raging.

In his book, American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free, Hegseth makes his disdain for Muslims clear. In the first chapter, he criticizes Ilhan Omar, a Muslim, hijab-wearing member of Congress, referring to her as Somali Omar—instead of, for example, Congresswoman Omar-- for her supposed lack of gratitude toward the country that admitted her as a refugee and educated her. He blasts her at length for complaining about the racism she encountered. That Omar could feel both gratitude for the advantages American provides and dismay at its racism did not seem to occur to Hegseth---and the racism directed at her was dismaying indeed. In April 2019, almost a year before American Crusade was published, a man called Omar’s congressional office, accused her of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, and threatened to put a bullet through her head. Another person threatened to shoot her at a state fair.  Does Hegseth believe that Omar has no right to complain about the racism and Islamophobia underlying these threats? Does the fact that she was once an immigrant mean that she has no right to confront racism now that she is an American citizen?

Hegseth does not direct his wrath solely at Muslims. The entire American left is the object of his disdain. In the same book, he accuses the left of wanting to annihilate America by erasing it soul, its culture, and its institutions. We on the left are not mere political opponents, people who have good-faith disagreements with the political right. We are foes.

If Hegseth’s overheated rightwing rhetoric about his fellow citizens and his total lack of the administrative experience necessary to run a massive bureaucracy like the Defense Department were his only shortcomings, he might not be such an alarming choice. Alas, his rhetoric gets worse, encompassing both Muslims living centuries earlier and those living today. In his book, he glorifies the Crusades, contrasting marching Christian knights with conquering Muslim hordes. Perhaps because he studied politics at Yale rather than history, Hegseth does not inform readers that the first Christian knights engaged in bloody pogroms against defenseless European Jews while in route to the Holy Land and once there, slaughtered 30,000 inhabitants, many of whom were unarmed women and children, in two days. One observer reported that blood reached up to his knees. While this massacre appalled more peaceful Europeans, that feeling faded among many, including the monk who, according to religious scholar Karen Armstrong, wrote that Muslims were “a savage race fit only for extermination.”  While Hegseth is probably unfamiliar with that quotation, his demeaning language toward Muslims and willingness to gloss over crusader crimes bear too close a resemblance to the thoughts of that holy monk.

Not content to laud the Crusades on paper, Hegseth has also had images associated with the Crusades tattooed on his body. His chest bears the large image of the Jerusalem Cross, symbol of the kingdom that crusaders established in Jerusalem. Hegseth claims that this tattoo led to him being asked to stand down after he had volunteered as part of the Army National Guard to provide security for the Biden inauguration in 2020.

 

 

Lest anyone conclude that the tattoo was a one-time mistake made after a drunken frat party, he also had the Latin phrase, Deus vult, meaning “God wills it,” tattooed on his bicep. These words served as the rallying cry for the crusader army.

 

 

Hegseth’s militaristic tattoos reflect more than an over-enthusiasm for a particular period in history. He has carried his Middle East militancy into the present day, as evidenced by a speech he gave early in Trump’s first term, at a conference hosted by Arutz Sheva (Channel 7), an Israeli media outlet identified with Israel’s religious right and the settler movement. An indication of Arutz Sheva’s militancy can be found in its decision to place its headquarters in the West Bank settlement Beit El. This town, built on land confiscated from Palestinians after the 1967 war, was home to Shlomo Aviner, the spiritual father of the religious Zionist movement who opposed renting homes in Israel to Arabs.

At the Arutz Sheva conference, Hegseth expressed the opinion that “there's no reason why the miracle of the reestablishment of the temple on the Temple Mount is not possible”—a comment that ignores the near-certainty that an attempt to rebuild the temple where the Dome of the Rock now stands would ignite a level of violence that could easily lead to a regional war and perhaps a world war.  Hegseth not only hoped the temple would be rebuilt, he seemingly urged his audience to hasten that possibility:

I don't know how it [rebuilding the temple] would happen. You don't know how it would happen, but I know that it could happen. That's all I know and a step in that process, a step in every process, is the recognition that facts and activities on the ground truly matter and that's why going and visiting Judea and Samaria, understanding that sovereignty, the very sovereignty of Israeli soil and Israeli cities [and] locations is a critical next step to showing the world that this is the land for Jews.  . . . he [a previous speaker] said you need to buy the ticket. Don't just wish for 40 years to win the lottery. Buy the ticket. I would submit to you in light of the support you have in Washington DC, the support you have amongst patriotic Americans, amongst Evangelical Christians, amongst believers, amongst Republicans, even amongst some Democrats who can barely say it anymore in Washington, buy the ticket. Take your action. Do what needs to be done here in Israel cuz I truly believe this is a moment where America will have your back. You have you have Donald Trump in the White House. You have Mike Pence as vice president. You have Nikki Haley at the UN. You have True Believers in Israel and America that have your back.

Thus, America’s future secretary of defense spoke in a foreign country in a way that erased the centuries-long Palestinian presence—note the reference to Judea and Samaria instead of the West Bank—and subtly incited his listeners to engage in conduct with a high potential to touch off a bloodbath—an outcome that would have made the US position in that region even more complicated than it already is. His words are vague enough—buy a ticket—to leave him with plausible deniability while at the same time being clearly understood by fanatical listeners. His words had a non-trivial potential to incite violence—which, fortunately did not happen. One can only wonder what will happen when Hegseth acquires real political power.

America’s future Secretary of Defense also dismissed the possibility of a two-state solution, declaring that there should be one state because of facts on the ground—an opinion that plays to the political biases of his settler audience. On this one issue, Hegseth seems to be correct, though. Removing hundreds of thousands of settlers—even if it were possible—would demolish the political career of any prime minister who tried it and perhaps provoke widespread civil unrest within Israel proper.

While Hegseth made these statements when he was a private citizen and free to express any opinion he pleased to whomever he pleased, the inflammatory nature of these comments raises questions about his ability to separate his personal views from the interests of the United States, its secular government, and its religiously diverse population.

Another Trump appointee, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, as ambassador to Israel, also raises questions about the nature of the future administration’s policy toward the Israel-Palestine conflict. In many ways, Huckabee is an impressive and likeable man. Born into a family of modest means—he was the first male in his family to graduate from high school—Huckabee earned a degree in religion at a Baptist college n 2 ½ years, had a successful political and business career, and possesses excellent communication skills. As a pastor in the 1980s, he urged people in the church he pastored to admit African American members. People who know him say that his religious beliefs are sincere and deeply held but that he never uses his views as a cudgel. Huckabee is currently a regular contributor to FOX News and has co-founded a company that publishes children’s books. One offering is entitled A Kids Guide to President Trump.

Unfortunately, Huckabee lacks diplomatic experience and holds views that have been strongly influenced by Christian Zionism, a drawback for someone who wants to hold a politically sensitive position in a region fraught with ethnic and religious tensions.  A career foreign service officer, Luis Moreno, met Huckabee while he served as a Deputy Chief of Mission in Tel Aviv between 2007 and 2010. His impression was not a favorable one:

I unfortunately was exposed to him during his visits to Israel back in the day. Full blown (and knowledgeable) fanatic of the End of Times, Apocalypse, Israel’s destruction, etc. A true and utter nut case. Couldn’t be a more dangerous selection.

Huckabee’s views have not moderated since then. In a January 3, 2017, interview with CNN he reveals his ideology:

“I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria,” said Huckabee, using the Biblical terms for the West Bank. “There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”

He claims to have visited Israel 100 times and has even laid a cornerstone for a building in the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. This settlement with forty thousand residents serves to break up Palestinian territory and make a peace agreement less likely.  At about the same time, when then Secretary of State John Kerry denounced the settlements as obstacles to peace, Huckabee called the comments “absolute bull butter.”

Thus, Huckabee, like Hegseth, denies the existence of a Palestinian land and the brutal reality of the occupation. With Republicans in control of the Senate, there is little doubt that they will be confirmed. The Netanyahu government, already out of control, will be further empowered to engage in a war that looks increasingly like ethnic cleansing, a result that may provoke a backlash against the US that will rock our economy and perhaps lead to terror attacks on US soil. But the biggest losers will be the Palestinians and moderate Israelis whose lives will be endangered because a US president wanted money—like that 100 million from pro-Israel hawk Miriam Adelson, votes from Christian fundamentalists, and fealty from yes-men like Hegseth and Huckabee.

 

 

 

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