Asher Keren, Author at Israel Rising

February 25, 2016February 28, 2016

The Day Dachau was Liberated by Native Americans

Located in Oklahoma City, the 45th Infantry Division, disbanded in 1968, was originally a part of the Oklahoma National Guard and saw action in both World War II and the Korean War. Composed of soldiers from New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Oklahoma the 45th was established in the early 1920s; its soldiers were natural fighters, marksmen and people of the land. Some of them were Native Americans whose families had come to the region from Tennessee and the Carolinas in the brutal Trail of Tears.

Ironically, the 45th Infantry Division in 1924 chose the Swastika as their symbol. The Swastika was a Native American symbol. In 1939, with the rise of Nationalist Socialism in Germany, members of the 45th Infantry Division replaced their insignia with a Thunderbird, another Native American symbol, designed by Oklahoma native Woody Big Bow.

During World War II, the division engaged in heavy fighting against the Nazis in Italy, displaying great bravery and resolve, despite serious losses. They would be the first Allied troops to reach the Vatican. After Italy, they entered into France and Germany, capturing several key cities and eventually crossing the Danube River. On April 29th, 1945 the 45th was sent to liberate the Dachau Concentration Camp.

Upon witnessing the horrors of Dachau, soldiers of the 45th mowed down Nazi soldiers who had already surrendered, Cherokee Indian 1st Lieutenant Jack Bushyhead personally ordering the execution of almost 400 SS troops. In the eyes of the Native American soldiers of the U.S. Army, Nazi soldiers in concentration camps were not ordinary enemy soldiers deserving of protection as prisoners of war; they were simply murderers. Those liberated Jewish inmates that still had enough strength to take vengeance joined the 45th in this act. Jews, White and Black Americans and American Indians taking revenge together on Nazis is something that binds. The Jews also killed some kapos. This was not the direct business of the American soldiers, but they did help.

Lt. Jack Bushyhead (left) at the Liberation of Dachau, 1945.

Immediately before entering the Dachau Concentration Camp, the soldiers of the 45th found thirty nine railroad boxcars containing two thousand skeletal corpses and brain tissue scattered about from smashed in skulls. According to eyewitness reports, the battle toughened soldiers were not at all prepared for the sight and, in concert with the stench of decaying corpses, could not hold their emotions back. They vomited, cried and entered a state of rage that cannot be understood by those that have never experienced such horrors.

At that point Nazi tower guardsmen started to shoot on the American soldiers and the fighting resumed, but not in full force. It seems that many of the SS guards, the camp commander and others had fled the camp just before its liberation, leaving hundreds more strewn and tortured bodies for the 45th Infantry Division liberators to find. Still, the Nazis had 560 SS soldiers left in the compound, many of them Hungarian Waffen SS troops, others were inmates of the SS conscripted prison system which was also housed in Dachau.

There is much dispute as to what really happened at the camp, how many Nazi Soldiers were actually killed and under what circumstances. In his 1986 book, Dachau: The Day of the Avenger, an Eyewitness Account, first lieutenant and medical corps office Howard Buechner writes that U.S. forces killed 520 Nazi soldiers, 346 on the orders of the Cherokee Indian, Jack Bushyhead. Other eyewitnesses dispute this and still others confirm.

Alleged execution of SS troops in a coal yard in the area of the Dachau concentration camp during its liberation. April 29, 1945

After the liberation, accusations of war crimes were hurled at the American forces. As such, getting to the truth of the episode is difficult. No matter the true number of executed Nazis, during a United States Army investigation into the occurrences, General George S. Patton dismissed the charges. Deputy Judge Advocate, Colonel Charles L. Decker, wrote: “in the light of the conditions which greeted the eyes of the first combat troops, it is not believed that justice or equity demand that the difficult and perhaps impossible task of fixing individual responsibility now be undertaken.”

What is not denied is that the American soldiers gave guns and tools to the Jewish inmates that still had strength enough to take revenge on the Nazi soldiers still in the complex. And take revenge they did, killing and butchering several Nazis as well as Jewish kapos.

Jewish Inmate Beating SS Guard — Dachau inmate prepares to beat a guard to death with a shovel

These occurrences, of course, of Jewish inmates taking revenge on Nazi soldiers were never considered immoral or wrong. They were understandable to all, probably to the Nazi soldiers as well as the Jewish kapos themselves.

The question then must be asked. Is it not enough to see and to internalize or must one actually fall victim first? The Cherokee Jack Bushyhead knew oppression and the murdering of innocents in his family from the Trail of Tears, the mid nineteenth century forced walk of several Indian tribes and Black Americans from the Southeastern United States to the Oklahoma territory. It is estimated that approximately 2000-6000 Cherokee Indians died on the vicious and brutal journey.

Having internalized his own people’s narrative, this Native American hero was perhaps doubly moved to act on the pledge: Never Again.

February 21, 2016February 21, 2016

The Biology of Terror

While the world scrambles to deal with the continually growing threat of radical Islam, the true underlying causes of this phenomenon are grossly ignored. Governments – local, federal and international – are considering various strategies to contend with this unprecedented danger in various ways: militarily, politically, criminally and culturally, all the time ignoring the biological root cause of Islamic terrorism. The world runs the risk of continued peril if it does not quickly come to terms with the following politically incorrect fact: radical Islamic culture, in its various fanatic forms, leads to severe mental and emotional impairment. The conclusion, even more politically incorrect than the hypothesis, is that the culture of radical Islam must be shut down in all countries that believe in human freedom and mental health. A further conclusion is that political or cultural arrangements that allow for the preservation of this deranged culture can only lead to disaster.

Several important researchers, such as John Crayton, Jerrold Post and Richard Pearlstein, take the “terrorist as mentally ill” approach in trying to make sense of the phenomenon of individual acts of terror. Post asserts that individuals drawn to terrorism rely on the psychological mechanisms of ‘externilization’ and ‘splitting’. These psychological mechanisms are, according to Post, found in “individuals with narcissistic and borderline personality disturbances”, disturbances that usually occur during childhood and early adulthood. The ability to healthily integrate the good and bad sides of one’s personality is lost and thus their split personalities are split into “me” and “not me”, the one capable of inflicting violent damage on the other, including suicides that destroy their surroundings as well.

Is it not only possible, but rather probable, that societies that raise their young under a constant atmosphere of violence, rape, fear, jealousy, disciplinary stringency, an erased and even deprecated sense of the feminine self, may just be a breeding ground for violent fanaticism?

For instance, female genital mutilation, a practice common to much of Islamic society, can result in severe bleeding, neurogenic shock, haemorrhagic shock, severe pain, shame and trauma; it goes without saying, all this without the requisite medical and psychological help given to the victim. Honor killings have risen greatly as of late amongst Arab societies with horrendous affects not only for the hapless woman, but for family as well. A Palestinian reported that after a woman was killed for suspected adultery, her children were left “for two weeks, incapable of sleep, crying for their mother.”

Child rape, both male and female, and by both mother and father, is common in many segments of Muslim society, and now it has spread to those that would respect the religious and cultural mores of their Muslim immigrants. In a 2014 BBC report on the Muslim immigrant population, it was reported that “at least 1,400 children were subjected to appalling sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013…..children as young as 11 were raped by multiple perpetrators, abducted, trafficked to other cities in England, beaten and intimidated.”

Domestic violence against women, according to many but not all scholars of Muslim jurisprudence, is allowed and not subject to punishment. Add to this the roaring role of the Imam in the mosque and the constant message of violence against the infidel, the total and utter lack of sensitivity in the killing of animals for consumption (compare Jewish ritual slaughter or Western government-approved slaughter with Halal slaughter), children and women being made to stand in front of their men as protection, and an entire list of similar atrocities. It seems a pretty good bet that if we examined these segments of Muslim populations psychologically, we would see a large segment of this population suffering from ‘externalization’ and ‘splitting’. In biological terms, we would see different patterns of brain region activation, epigenetic negative influence on normal gene expression and even anatomical differences caused by trauma on the developing brain.

Can solving this problem really be seen as something that has to do with good will and multiculturalism? Can any political deal made with these people really produce something longer lasting than the ink on the document? Is it any wonder that so many non-Muslim grown psychopaths are finding their way to radical Islam (perhaps radical Islam represents to them one form of “not me” that they can easily identify with)?

In a 2012 paper entitled “Dynamic Epigenetic Responses To Childhood Exposure to Violence”, Jonathan Mill writes, “Of note, changes in DNA methylation following early life stress have been associated with long-term changes in gene expression and behavior and may contribute to both psychiatric disorders and physiological disturbances later in life.” He provides evidence of altered gene expression due to juvenile violence.

British researchers found significant differences between the brains of psychopaths and normal people, specifically in the uncinate fasciculus, while earlier studies have shown similar differences in the emotional and violence regulating center – the amygdala – and the orbitofrontal cortex, an area important for decision making. Lead researcher, Dr. Michael Craig states, “The suggestion of a clear structural deficit in the brains of psychopaths has profound implications for clinicians, research scientists and the criminal justice system.”

Dr. Craig should have noted as well that the implications for politicians and social scientists are no less important. Viewing Muslim terror in this way reveals, for instance, the utter futility and even great danger of ideas such as the Two State Solution between Israel and the Palestinians. Taking from Israel the ability to militarily patrol this breeding ground of psychopaths is insane. It will never work. Psychopathic societies are never satiated (need we mention Global Jihad and the Global Caliphate?). Will the Muslims in Pakistan ever stop their murderous fury against the Hindus? I doubt it – unless they stop following radical Islam.

The world can help with this and put an end to radical Islam. But it must be understood that this is a problem for the World Health Organization, not for the UN proper; radical interpretations of Sharia Law as a global health problem. The very many Islamic apologists, Barack Hussein Obama included, must understand that if they desire to protect any vestige of goodwill towards Islam, they must help to eradicate those very many biological aspects that lead to gross mental regression. This means, first and foremost, reigning in Sharia Law. It is time to tame radical Islam, which means not only ISIS, but also a score of political movements that create this sickened and dark reality – Hamas and Boko Haram as just two examples.

There can be no political negotiations with the deranged. For Europe and America, there can be no cultural respect for those that lead their own down the slippery slope of mental illness.

Most importantly, it behooves those Muslims that reject the methods and ideologies of the radical Islamists to create strong societal borders even within their own communities, to not only theoretically reject but to functionally halt this growing plague. Should they not do so, the boundaries between radical Islam and Islam will be understandably blurred by outsiders in the Western world and the consequences that even the moderate Muslims suffer will be completely of their own making.

February 18, 2016

The Case Against Building a Casino in Eilat

I have a very wise friend, one of the wisest people I know, who explained to me recently, in his typically wise way, why people should not be shocked over a recently aired interview on Israeli television between journalist Amnon Levy and a Satmar Hassid who doubled as a cocaine dealer and murderer.

Throughout the interview, Levy could not but help express his befuddlement over the seeming incongruity between identifying with and living amongst Judaism’s strictest sect, and simultaneously being a drug lord and gang member. Levy, a secular or perhaps slightly traditional Jew, could simply not get over the fact that one’s s advertised morality and one’s personal morality had absolutely nothing to do with one another. Indeed, this is exactly what irked Levy so much, because this particular Hassid admitted to Levy that he had no remorse and felt no conflict between his communal path and his ‘professional’ path. He separated the two. These are the signs of a psychopath, actually, but my friend’s point can still be made.

Jews are believers, sometimes in God as well, but always in some kind of ideology. Jews do not take middle of the ground positions. Whatever they believe in, be it socialism or Hassidut or settlement or Zionism or feminism or Haredi(ism) or social justice or self hatred masked in this or that ideology or whatever the cause, Jews believe. On the other hand, Jews are people and like all people, they are not perfect. This dichotomy leads often to a twisted case of patriotism (in the case of the drug dealing Hassid, a particularly perverted case), by which the flag waver never gives up the flag even if its demands are far beyond what that individual is willing to accept.

In this extreme case, the Hassid knew deep down that the Satmir way was the right way, but it simply was not for him. He had been hurt by his community and had for many years developed a love-hate relationship with them, but somehow deep within he continued to believe in the path, even if he had abandoned its dictates. He was not a moral Jew – but he wanted his children to be! He was determined to continue the chain even if for him there was no reconciliation between his personal life and his ideological life.

We see this in far less extreme cases all of the time: Secular great-grandparents who abandoned God at the gates of Auschwitz and are thrilled to see their grandchildren and great-grandchildren return to the study of Torah, secular Jewish business magnates donating heavily to Yeshivas and Jewish learning and experience, American Jewish mafia of the last century helping the fledgling Jewish State with arms, training and funding, Rabbis that continue to teach even if they themselves have lost their own torch of faith, secular Israeli leftists that bash their own country daily but never leave – because they can’t.
None of them can, even if they wish that they could. Somehow, this Jewish “presence” sticks deep within and no matter the interpretation, Jews may twist and shout and contort their views, but at the end of the day will fight to preserve, no matter how much they have personally abandoned their own stated beliefs.

And while there will be those readers that will protest this comparison of others with the drug dealing Hassid or the murderous Jewish gangsters, and will haughtily express their indignation that good people are included in this same vile pie, rest assured that the comparison is apt and that there is a special case that is far worse.

Years ago I hailed a taxi in Jerusalem. Just to have some fun, when the taxi driver, a traditional Jew, asked me “where to”, I answered, “to wherever you want to go”. He stared incredulously at me and asked if I was serious. “Of course”, I answered, “after all its your car.” After breaking into a very slight sweat and gulping as if parched and in need of a drink, he answered, “if you are serious, than let’s drive down to the casino in Jericho.”

Well, he had really turned the tables on me and I began to explain to him that casinos were bad, that he did not look like someone that could afford to lose money, that this particular casino was owned partially by Arab terrorists and that therefore the money would go to funding terrorism and that in general casinos were places that created surrounding cultures of vice.

“I know”, he exasperatingly exclaimed, “but what can I do? I can’t help it. I am right wing, I believe in God and country, I hate Arab terrorists and I vote Likud, but this is just something that my body and soul needs. Are you with me? Can we go?”

I learned several important things in that brief encounter. First, that the Likud is about as low browed a party as exists in the entire country, the current debate over casinos in Eilat proving again this very point. Second, that as my wise friend explains, people are people and patriotism is sometimes conjoined at the hip to personal and moral defeat. Third, that I would not have much cared if the taxi driver had wanted me to join him at a poker party, but was shocked when he was desirous of a plan that could cause his own people great pain and suffering.

Any casino, anywhere in the world, brings with it alcoholism, prostitution, hard earned money thrown to the wind, a culture of decadence and emptiness, mafia and gangland murder. It is not Jewish, not by the standards of the religious Jew, not by the standards of the secular Zionist Jew, not by feminist standards, not by social justice standards, not by any standard. And yes, it is far worse than the Hassidic murderer, because with it all, he still held on to something far dearer to him than his own psychopathy. He held to his community standards for friends and family and never allowed them to enter his sick game. But these Likudnikim, these men that would not only abandon their personal morality, but also infect an entire culture with this lustful foolishness, they are far worse.

February 12, 2016February 12, 2016

The Amish and ISIS

Both the Amish and ISIS reject to a great extent Western culture and both have serious issues with the principles of modernity. One chops off heads and one does its thing, in peace and with dignity and love. Given that the Amish have more or less succeeded in forming an exemplary and peace loving, hard working, religiously fervent society, it may not really be religion or culture as such that are at loggerheads with the West. The Amish have proven for quite a long time that communities of people, while rejecting much of what the West has become, can be relevant and sustained in peace and with dignity, without giving up on their principles.

Religious persecution? The Amish have experienced it several times. Economic disadvantage? It is not easy to make a buck in a world without using the latest technologies, especially in agriculture, but the Amish are flourishing. What is it exactly that produces a culture that builds, that loves, that protects, and another culture that destroys, that hates and threatens? Beyond their rejection of modern Western values, both ISIS and the AMISH have an even more interesting similarity – they both marry within and have a large degree of consanguineous marriages, a practice that leads to higher than usual numbers of inbred genetic issues within their populations, including bipolar disorders and other forms of mental disease.

So again, the question remains – why does one group lead towards love and community and the other towards death and destruction? The answer, obviously, is that the two diametrically opposed groups live in two diametrically opposed cultures. Culture in and of itself, however, is not an entity with agency; for culture to influence, it must take hold in the brain. In essence, therefore, the question is one of mental health. The Amish are healthy while ISIS followers are mentally deranged. Once it is understood that people that chop off the heads of perceived enemies or even co-religionists who are less fanatic in their practices, that place their bombs in hospitals and schools, that kidnap young girls and rape and prostitute them, that practice female circumcision, honor killings of women and child abuse without punishment, that torture and shoot without trial or evidence suspected traitors, it may be finally admitted that the key issue here is one of mental health and not ‘culture’ or ‘religion’. This is a problem with a strong biological basis, a medical problem.

Culture is merely an excuse that the Western multiculturalists throw around to make excuse for the deranged practices of much of what is radical Islam today. In actuality, many Muslims suffer from severe mental disease caused by inbreeding, a lifestyle that is violent, stringent, fanatic, jealous, sadistic, misogynist in the extreme, sexually perverse and genocidal.
What would any mental health expert expect from a person that grows up today within the strict confines of radical Islam? Imagine a couple from Pasadena that performs female circumcision on their daughter of middle school age. Would the authorities allow those parents to keep custody over that girl? Would the parents go to jail? Most importantly, would that young woman be given massive psychological care, all paid for by the county? What, then, can be expected from an entire culture that performs, day in and day out, atrocities on their own population in addition to other populations in their vicinity?

It would seem that a growing part of today’s Muslim world suffers from harsh and abnormal psychological disease that leads to terrorist phenomena such as ISIS, Hamas, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, the Palestinian Authority and a long list of other groups situated around the globe. Apparently, mental illness is on the rise.

The distinction between culture and mental disease is important for several reasons. Multiculturalists may be prone to allow for Sharia law in Europe and even in Dearborn, Michigan, where the local council has voted to become the first city in the United States to fully implement Sharia law for its Muslim citizens. Perhaps it was done as a show of respect for Islam, perhaps out of fear. But either way, it is a gesture of good will to another culture quickly spreading through the States and indeed, the entire world. If, however, radical interpretations of Sharia law were understood as a recipe for mental disease and violence, they most likely would not be allowed into American or European legal considerations.

A couple of years ago a woman in Oklahoma was decapitated by a man who had recently become a convert to Islam. This man, well before becoming a Muslim, had a disturbing record of violence. Thus, a great debate began in America – was this an act of radical Islam – a terrorist act – or an act of a deranged soul regardless of his religious affiliation. It was a pathetic and sterile debate. Obviously, it was the act of a violent and deranged individual and just as obviously, such an individual finds inspiration from and identification with radical Islam. This murderer did not become deranged because of Islam, but at the same time, birds of a feather……………..

It is interesting to note that many Islamic apologists speak of the Golden Age of Islamic culture and achievement, where contributions to philosophy, art and mathematics were great. What these ‘historians’ fail to mention is the fact this period of Muslim history, approximately nine hundred years ago, was a period where many staunch Muslim religionists led an open and non-apologetic type of double life, imbibing wine and enjoying the good life. The very same people that led to great Muslim achievement would have been the first to be beheaded by today’s radical Islam.

Radical Islamists should not be treated as group of people with legitimate claims against Israel, the West or the Kurds. To treat their culture as one that is deserving of respect is simply to engage in this century’s greatest lie. The Amish are deserving of respect. Radical Islam and it s accompanying radical interpretation of Sharia law are deserving of nothing but contempt and must be rooted out quickly and thoroughly.

The West has problems that must be studied, introspection that is critical now more than ever to be undertaken, but the West does not condone the covering up of women in black from head to toe, the castration of these same females and their ultimate murder for family pride. Further, the West does not place its children in front of bombs and does not ask its women to commit suicide bomber attacks. The West may be ill, which is why the Amish try to create bounds between the Western world and its own community, but there can be no comparison between radical Islam and Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, atheism. Radical Islam is a psychological disease that is growing and must be stopped. No amount of political or cultural gesture will stop this disease because this disease is a biological and medical phenomenon, not a political phenomenon. You cannot cut a deal with a disease. When this is understood, there may be a chance to survive the plague.

Based on an article the author originally published in the Times of Israel