Last week's question, "How much should Americans invest in Red China's economy?", was prompted by the news of joint military exercises between Soviet Russia and Red China. Most respondents chose complete disinvestment from the Red Chinese economy and a couple of "other" answers either agreed or leaned in the same direction, but no one opted to increase the level of invesment or to maintain the status quo. Here are a couple of the comments:

• "...They will show the people capitalism, but the government will rule. China's destiny is to invade Israel from the east..."
• "...the US has absolutely no business in helping Red China and Soviet Russia at all."

Factual Background:
The joint Russian-Chinese maneuvers, which began last Thursday and are continuing this week until Thursday, are described in the LA Times (8/17) as "their largest military exercise in modern history." Both Communist regimes are fairly explicit that the purpose is to show a united anti-American front.

The close relationship between the two regimes goes back to 1920, when the Communist Party of China (CPC) was originally founded under close Russian control and assistance. The Soviets provided massive assistance to the CPC during its war against the Chinese government, and continued giving military aid, including nuclear technology, to the Chinese Communists after their occupation forces seized control of the Chinese mainland in 1949. In fact, such aid has continued over the decades without letup; during the Vietnam War, for example, the Russian, Chinese, and Vietnamese Communists worked closely together in fighting American troops. Under the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin, Soviet military support for Red China has become more aggressive, and now includes advanced Russian ships, aircraft, missiles, and radar technology. And the regimes in both Moscow and Beijing are cooperating in assisting Communist regimes in Syria, Iran, North Korea, and other satellite nations.

Since the early 1980s, the United States has pumped many billions of dollars of direct aid into the Red Chinese economy, assisting its military buildup. During the 1990s, a public scandal grew over the discovery that the vast majority of "private businesses" in Red China were nothing but a sham, false fronts secretly owned by the People's Liberation Army (the Red Chinese military) — meaning that the profit from any products purchased from Communist China goes directly into their military. And it also reveals that the innumerable US manufacturing and high-technology investments in Red China, creating the industrial manufacturing capacity in China itself (rather than merely selling them the end products), is effectively constructing the Red Chinese military-industrial complex. (The notion of "Chinese capitalism" is entirely a myth to bait the free world into investing.)

And, of course, the Communists worlwide have never abandoned their goal of global revolution — including the overthrow of the US government and the spread of revolutionary anarchy everywhere. Mikhail Gorbachev, former Soviet dictator, emphasized this point himself in describing the real reasons for "perestroika" and the renewal (the carefully orchestrated "collapse") of Soviet Communism.

Relevant Torah Principles:
1) Under the Noachide Laws, it is obligatory to uphold national defense — a major cornerstone of justice.

2) The obligation of justice also prohibits treason (the rendering of aid and comfort to a nation's true enemies). Treason can include providing weapons, or the capacity to make them, to the enemy. The Torah mandates the death penalty for this crime, a direct violation of the commandment of justice.

3) The Torah also empowers a government to take other measures, along with any necessary punishments, to uphold justice — in this case, to prevent economic or technological aid to our sworn enemies.

Analysis:
Especially in light of an approaching war between Communism and the free world, the US government (and all others as well, for that matter) is required to ban all trade with the Beijing regime that currently occupies the Chinese mainland. This would include bank loans (and subsidized loans by the World Bank and other international lending agencies), sales of arms and military technology (and of dual-use civilian technology easily converted to military purposes), construction of manufacturing plants, and purchase of any Chinese-made products. All these forms of aid or trade directly or indirectly assist the People's Liberation Army.

For many of these forms of aid, the government's minimum obligation is to enforce the law with the death penalty; under current circumstances, where thousands of American businesses conduct trade and would be resistant to ending it, the government can (and should) impose the death penalty for even the slightest assistance to Red China.

In the meantime, while US leaders are actively promoting treasonous aid to the enemy, it is a moral obligation under both Jewish and Noachide Laws to abstain from doing business with China whenever possible (in a very few exceptional cases, it is nearly impossible to find certain types of products made anywhere else, but in most cases non-Chinese alternatives are available and should be chosen instead).

And each of us must constantly remember that, while at the moment there is virtually no legal sanction against aiding Red China, G-d Himself watches and knows everything. As Pirkei Avos states (2:1), "Know what is above you: an Eye that sees and an Ear that hears, and all your actions being written in a book."

And now for this week's survey question:

Only one answer per e-mail address will be accepted; only e-mail addresses on our subscription list are eligible. Please send your input by Tuesday, August 30, 2005, 12pm PST.

This week's example:
Rabbi Leibel Korf, Chabad of Greater Los Feliz, Los Angeles, CA

Despite receiving our proclamation (calling on all Jews to get involved in the campaign to defund the PLO) on March 9 at 12:28pm, and again being reminded by e-mail on June 26th, Rabbi Korf has not responded with a signature. The proclamation itself, of course, states clearly the halachic reasons that he is obligated to sign, but apparently that's not enough persuasion.

Rabbi Korf's Chabad House is subject to the authority of Rabbi Boruch S. Cunin, head of the Lubavitch organization for California. And as we have already pointed out, Cunin remains a renegade against Jewish Law by refusing to endorse this campaign for saving lives (and by opposing the Rebbe's Noachide campaign, as discussed at www.noahide.com/cunin.htm). Cunin's tight political fist seems to be the main factor keeping so many California Chabad representatives from doing their duty.

This week's example:
Rabbi Shmuel Bluming, Oholei Torah Yeshiva, Brooklyn, NY

Rabbi Bluming, a teacher of Lubavitch boys, signed the proclamation when it was shown to him on May 26th. He and several others were there that day, and all of them, without exception, signed it on the spot (as we have reviewed in recent weeks). Generally, the rabbis of New York are proving to be less afraid of political factors and more willing at least to acknowledge their Torah duties. A big difference may be in the fact that New York Chabad has no single person dictating policy to Lubavitchers there, while in California and Nevada Cunin rules the organization. Still, that's no excuse; the Torah obligates everyone to stand against the corrupt policies of someone like Cunin. Those who show the proper courage will be protected by G-d, and thus have nothing to fear.

What do you think about Jewish leadership on PLO defunding? Send us your comments at [address withheld].

For a complete listing of all rabbis who have received our proclamation, the up-to-date status of their responses, and how you can get help the campaign, visit ATTAC Report at http://www.attacreport.com/plo/.

This week's edition of our sister site, ATTAC Report, presents:

• How the scientific movement challenging the "AIDS virus" myth was successfully disrupted — and the story of the infiltrator who covertly carried out the sabotage
• The debut of our Genocide Clock tracking the ongoing mass murder in Russia and the other Soviet republics
• A map of dozens of concentration camps, including seven active death camps, in Uzbekistan today

• "...In the Christian Bible, Isaiah 7:14 is mistranslated by using the word 'virgin' for almah, instead of betulah. Why would Christian scholars today insist on keeping this mistranslation in the Bible?" — GC.

Our response: The cited passage in Isaiah discusses the giving of a "sign" and states (by G-d, speaking through the prophet Isaiah) that a woman ("almah" in Hebrew) will give birth to a son, who will be named "Immanuel." Christian tradition claims this passage refers to the Messiah and states he will be born to a virgin mother — thus trying to justify the Christian story of Jesus being born to a "virgin" Mary.

The notion of a virgin giving birth is, to put it mildly, a bizarre concept. So if the prophet were trying to convey that idea, he would have needed to use the Hebrew word that specifically designates a woman who has never experienced relations — namely, a "besullah." Instead, the passage uses the more general term "almah," which is the female construction of the term "elem" (meaning a "young man"), and merely means a "young woman" (who is not necessarily a virgin). The term "almah" can sometimes be translated as "virgin," but only where we politely assume the young woman is, in fact, an actual virgin. Without such special context, the word means any young woman, including one who is not a virgin.

As a matter of fact, a simple reading of Isaiah chapter 7 quickly shows that it is not referring to the Messiah at all, but rather to the son of Isaiah himself! The passage clearly describes the birth of the son as a sign of Israeli victory over Assyrian forces, then relates that Isaiah (on G-d's instructions) has relations with a female prophetess, from which is born the son named Immanuel. So clearly this was not a virgin birth.

The notion of a "man-god" being born to a "virgin mother" is found nowhere in Jewish tradition, but was a well-known pagan legend amongst the most popular cults of Egypt, Babylon, and the far east. In Egypt, for example, it was the story of Isis and Osiris, in which a "god" has relations with a human woman (who remains a virgin), leading to the birth of a man-god who grows up, is killed as an adult, and resurrects back to life in the springtime to return to heaven. This pagan legend was adopted wholesale by the authors of the Christian "New Testament" when they re-wrote the life of Jesus to fit their Gnostic religion of Christianity.

Since Christianity claims to be the fulfillment of Judaism, the Church was forced to find some basis in Jewish tradition to support this "virgin birth" story. Not being an easy task, Christian leaders must have spent innumerable hours poring over Hebrew scriptures until they found the story of Isaiah's son Immanual and decided, out of sheer desperation, to re-interpret that account badly out of context — claiming it had a "hidden meaning" referring to the Messiah, and that the word "almah" instead referred to some "virgin" woman.

And since the "Isis-Osiris" story wound up as a central part of the "New Testament," there has been no way for Christianity to back out of this pagan silliness to this very day — at least, not without admitting the "New Testament" to be man-made. And that would end Christianity itself. So don't expect the Church to back down on this revisionist interpretation; it will end only when Christians themselves realized they've been lied to for centuries, and abandon Christianity for the eternal truths of Torah.

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