Author: Andrew Smith
In the news recently has been the wild fires in and around Israel. Another significant news story is the wild fires that are burning in the southeast United States that are eerily in proximity to the Cherokee Nation. That is the parallels that we are going to compare in this arrangement. Parallels of nations, peoples, and patterns that are significant to note. There are many articles one can read that go in great depth as to the theory that the Native Americans are direct descendants of one of the lost ten tribes of Israel. There is quite a bit of reasons for this comparison such as; Their worship of J-hov-h, their division into tribes, their notions of a theocracy, their belief in the administration of angels, their language and dialects, their manner of counting time, their festivals, fasts and religious rites, their prophets and high priests, the list goes on and on. Many of these observances were noticed and chronicled by some of the first people to have significant contact with the different tribes of Native Americans. If you read the Bible at all you understand God’s plan for His chosen people and the patterns that always seem to manifest as nations and their peoples are moved through the purifying furnaces of God. What I find astonishing is the depth and longevity of the atrocities brought down on the Native Americans during the birth of this nation that still seem to loom in the air that we breathe.
In the spirit of parallels, we have to take a look at one of the most well documented genocides to happen to a people, the Jewish holocaust. Notice I said the most well documented, not the worst. It is estimated that some 6 million Jewish people were killed as a result of policies and practices of the German government. When this is paralleled with the European colonization of the Americas and the genocide that ensued to America’s indigenous occupants one begins to see why the truth is not taught in schools. There are numbers as high as 60, 80, even 100 million Native Americans that died as a result of the colonization of this country. Many of the deaths are attributed to disease brought by the European but the fact that smallpox-infested blankets were intentionally given to Native Americans in 1763 at the Siege of Fort Pitt cannot be ignored. It seems to me that all the while we have pointed the finger at Hitler and his band of Nazis for their deplorable actions against the Jewish people, we were trying to sweep our even more deplorable actions against Native Americans under the rug.
Now let us compare the use of reservations as a parallel. The trail of tears, look it up. John Toland wrote that Hitler was inspired in part by the Indian reservation system – a creation of the United States. Toland wrote in his book, Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography. “He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America’s extermination—by starvation and uneven combat—of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity.” How is that for a kick in the head. A nation that prides itself on being a Christian nation and on the front lines of freedom inspired Hitler himself with our cold and efficient means of killing people that got in our way. What saddens me more is that in what seemed to be repentance for our atrocities towards our First Nations people we entered into treaties with them in which we gave them land to call their own, not their original land mind you, but we gave them land and the right to be a sovereign nation over that land, or did we. The United States has never honored the treaties entered into with Native peoples, not once. I find it intriguing how God has always used the oppression of a people to bring healing to a land. The wisdom that needs to be carefully examined here is that when that healing was not allowed to ensue then desolation of that land shortly follows.
There seems to be one parallel between Native Americans and the Jewish people that is askew in this equation and that is the host people of this land being given that land back. As I look at news reports of the situation at Standing Rock and the always tense environment that surrounds Israel, I can’t help but ask the question are the wildfires in Israel and the Americas strangely connected. I don’t mean by the supposed arsonist but on a more spiritual level. To symbolize the fire that rages in both regions of the world. We are a country divided right now. I see many people that have repented from the sins of their ancestors and give attention to the First Nations people and their current struggle with an oppressive multinational oil/banking cartel. I also see the cold indifference of selfish people that are too engrossed in their own lives to even give a glance to what seems to be a given opportunity to speak out against the slavery that we are all subject to in this nation in hopes of breaking the yoke. It is a rare opportunity given to us by the Nation’s First people and the Spirit of Truth that is hovering as I write this to truly take hold of the oppression and dispose of it. Weather we are willing to admit it or not we are slaves to the system. There is judgment coming to those systems. It is my belief that Trump is going to surprise a lot people as he deals with the situations at hand in this country right now. Regardless it is still imperative that we give our muses to the choices that we will be given in the next few years. They will be choices of freedom or slavery and the choice will not come in the form of a vote. It will be cast by your voice. Whether it be a voice of outcry or a voice of prayer or a voice of action, your voice is needed. Silence is to condone tyranny. We have been given a chance. The winds of change are in our favor. If for any reason to stand up against the evil that has crept in to the folds of this country, do it for our children, because it is them that we sell into slavery with our silence.
There is quote from one of my favorite movies Star Trek Nemesis. A Romulan commander has a moment of conscience and reveals her Praetor’s true plans to her commanding officer. She says “He’s not planning to defeat Earth. He’s planning its annihilation. And his sins will mark us and our children for generations.” I bring this up for good reason here at the conclusion of this writing. We have lived through the mark of our ancestor’s sins. The tyranny that we have in place now is the wages of that sin. It is God’s year of Jubilee. A time when debts are forgiven. I believe God wants to set this Nation free from former sins, but it is going to take our voice to do it. He wants to hear us cry out in cadence that we confess to our part in this and that we repent and denounce the tyranny that lurks in the shadows under the guise of freedom. Like I said silence is condoning. It is my hope that others can see what I can see within the parallels, the parallels of peril.
