Secret History #19: Dawn of the Jews

So, we have 10 more classes left in the lecture series, and in these 10 classes, what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you how the American Empire will fall. And I will show you that what will replace the American Empire is Israel, what we call Pax Judaica. So for these next 10 classes, we will do an overview of history and show you why history will lead ultimately to the Pax Judaica. Okay. All right. So, let's do some questions from YouTube that my wife has picked out.

She reads all the comments. She loves reading the comments and she sends comments to me to reply to. Okay. So the first comment is, how do we restore our right hemisphere, or how do we become more creative? And the answer is that you have to reject materialism, that's the only way. Okay, you have to reject money, you have to reject power, you have to reject materialism in order to embrace your creativity and your right hemisphere. As a society, what will have to happen is a major crisis that threatens our very existence for us to come together and for us to be more altruistic and more creative.

A possibility is that if you really want to activate your right hemisphere, then you fall in love and you have children, or you could also choose to volunteer, help other people, be kind and generous to other people. Okay, so that's how you activate your right hemisphere. The second question is, do you only give lessons to one class? How's your journey to find some LSD? Okay. So, I'm only teaching one lecture series but three different sections. Okay. LSD, psychedelics, you know, I'm very interested in psychedelics. I myself do not want to partake in psychedelics because I don't really understand why I need to.

I read a lot of books. I practice a very altruistic lifestyle and therefore I don't feel as though I need psychedelics to break out of this materialistic world. Okay, I'm already connected to the divine. So, yeah. Okay, let's move on. All right, some more questions.

Could you make a video on how to understand history without bias? And a response is, first of all, it's impossible to be unbiased. Okay. And that is correct. We're all... He suggests that you have to look at documents and try to be really critical when you analyze documents and that's correct as well. Okay. The problem is that often we don't have documentation or we have documentation from only one source. So it's very hard to do. So what I'm trying to do with this class is try to propose a new theory of how to understand history, and if you adopt this model I guarantee you that your understanding of history will improve and also your understanding of how the world works will improve as well.

So there are three components to this new history model, which I call predictive history. Okay. The first is to understand historical patterns. And so when you try to look at history and the event there, you ask yourself, does this fit into a larger pattern or model of history? If it does, it's probably correct. If it doesn't, then there's something wrong here. Okay. The second tool is the idea of game theory. And the idea of game theory is to understand that all historical actors are motivated by their interests or worldview. And so you're looking at all the different historical actors and you're trying to figure out what their best strategy is.

Okay. And the third facet is the idea of religious eschatology. What this means is that all cultures have a certain religious outlook, a religious worldview. You can often find this worldview within their sacred texts. For example, the Bible or the Quran. Okay? And these texts will give you insight as to how they perceive history but also how they want history to eventually develop. So you can understand the strategies moving forward. Okay. All right. And we will look at these three strategies and we will adapt them for our historical understanding.

Okay. All right. Another question, this is really interesting. The question is, most of the greats across history were not Jewish. The domination by Jews of various industries is a relatively new phenomenon. Is it possible that their creativity and power is a result of political shifts in education in the Bible? Okay, this is a really good criticism of my previous lecture. And yeah, I mean the idea is that maybe there are certain aspects of Jewish culture that make them dominant in an industrial, capitalistic, globalized world. And there is some truth to that, but I often think about Chinese people because Chinese people are extremely materialistic.

Like, Chinese love money but we're not as creative as Jewish people. So I think that being materialistic, being capitalistic, is not enough. You also need to have an element of creativity within your culture. And that's why I think that the Bible helps us better understand the success of Jews. Okay. So this is a really good point and also what's really important to understand is that this is a class on intellectual speculation. Okay. We're trying to figure out theories. We're trying to play with ideas. There's no truth here.

Okay? So take everything I say with a grain of salt. Doubt whatever I say. This class is really meant to be a platform or jumping board for you to undertake your own intellectual journey. Okay? All right. So please keep that in mind. But we're going to look more closely at this question today. Okay. Why is it that Jews are so dominant?

So we will look at the beginning of the Jewish people and I'm going to make the argument to you that Israel and the Jewish identity are constructs of the imperial imagination. Okay. And this is hard to understand. So I'm going to explain it to you slowly, but the idea is that because of its geographic location, Israel has always been historically important. And as a result, different empires have tried to manipulate the identity of Israel to best promote their own agenda or policies. Okay. So, I know this is a hard concept to understand, but we'll go for it slowly.

And again, we're spending the rest of the semester on this major thesis of ours. Okay. So, let's talk about history. Okay. So what we did last week is look at the cultures that have emerged out of the Bronze Age collapse and which are now going to dominate history. Okay. They are the Greeks, the Persians and the Israelites. Okay. Now we're going to look at how these ideas play out in history. But for us to do that, we first need to understand how history works. Now I've identified three different patterns of geopolitics.

Okay? And I want you guys to remember these patterns. The first pattern is this. This is really important. I didn't understand... Competition within nation-states is what matters. Okay? Competition between nation-states doesn't really matter or it's not as significant as competition within nation-states. And the idea we have here is elite overproduction. So what drives a lot of conflict is the fact that domestically you have these different competing factions and they're all competing for power. Okay? So you have too many elites, too few status positions and so they're competing against each other and this drives a lot of conflict.

Okay, so that's the first idea. The second idea is that the elite have shifting loyalties. Okay, think of Game of Thrones. I'm not sure if you guys have seen the TV series or read the books, Game of Thrones, but everyone wants to be king, right? And they're going to kill their brother. They're going to kill their father. They're going to kill their mother to be king. Okay? And so the elite don't really have loyalties except to themselves. The world is just a game of thrones. Okay. The third thing is that war can be a mechanism to protect the status quo.

All right. The idea of equilibrium, in that sometimes the conflict is really bad. So what do you do? You start a war so you can turn off people to get killed. Okay? And that way you can maintain equilibrium within your system. We'll see this pattern throughout human history. Okay? So these are the three ideas I want you guys to remember as we move on and discuss world history. All right. So I want to give us an example for us to understand. Okay. Think of the Warring States period of China before the emergence of the first empire, the Qin Empire.

Okay. And as you can see from this map, China is divided into different warring states that are all powerful. And at this time in history, the Qin Empire, sorry, the Qin state is the poorest, is most isolated and it is the least advanced. Okay, you can see that Chu, Zhao, they are more powerful and you can argue that eventually one of them would emerge to unite all of China, but they did not. It was the Qin, the isolated, marginalized, backward state that came to conquer. And so the question is why this happened.

And so if we use our three principles, right, we can understand why these different states are not competing against each other. It's the elites within these states who are competing against each other. Okay, elite overproduction. So the way they manage this is for them to use warfare in order to maintain a status quo, to create equilibrium. Okay. And how we know is from this time emerges the idea of Chinese chess. Right? What is Chinese chess? Chinese chess is the idea of warfare that is regulated, that is... Okay?

So when we go to war, when we battle each other, we have to respect each other's rules of warfare. That's stupid. War should be about killing the other guy. It shouldn't be about following the rules. Okay. Also another piece of evidence is that at this time in history... wrote the book The Art of War. This is one of the stupidest books ever written. Okay, I guarantee you if you follow this book, you're going to lose the war badly because this is really about how to cheat in a heavily regulated game.

Okay, so things like using spies, oh, maintain a high guard. Okay, they have all these rules. And guess what? In actual war, none of these things actually work. Okay? So, if you look at history, I'm going to tell you exactly how to win a war. Okay? And the way you win a war is first of all, you have to be completely committed to winning this war. Okay? Total warfare. Second is that if you want to win this war, you have to make sure that talent arises. So, you have to be open and meritocratic.

Okay? If an officer or a general is winning this war, you promote him. That sounds easy, right? But not if you're status quo power because what's important to you is to maintain that your family is always on top. So if a general arises who is very innovative, who's really talented, you kill him because he's a threat to you. Okay. So the third principle is make sure your soldiers are happy. I know it sounds really simple, but again, if you're status quo power, you don't really care. Okay. Destroy enemy civil centers, siege warfare.

Okay. Go and destroy the city because that's how they produce their war capacity, right? The food, the soldiers, right? Kill civilians. The supply lines, overstretch your enemy, divide and conquer, strike fear in your enemy, kill their gods. Okay? If you really want a war, if you really want to win a war, this is what you have to do. And we know because this is what the Romans did. This is what the Persians did. This is what the Aztecs did. This is what the conquistadors did. Okay? This is what the Mongols did.

Every single power that has conquered everyone else has done all these things. Okay? So, when they don't do these things, it's because these different warring states aren't actually at war with each other. They're actually friends. Okay? They're all intermarried with each other. They're all trying to maintain a status quo. They use war as a game in order to maintain the status quo, to create equilibrium. Okay.

So this is true for Mesopotamia. Okay. Mesopotamia is important because remember this is the cradle of civilization. This is where the first empires will emerge. This is where most technological innovation happens. This was for the longest time the wealthiest part of the world. Okay. So remember the idea of Mesopotamia is that the first city-state is Uruk and then they will develop colonies throughout the Tigris and Euphrates and then these colonies will come into war with each other and they're all friends of each other. They're all intermarried and the elite create this highly ritualized warfare.

Okay. And one really important rule is that you don't kill each other's god. Okay? Because in their religion, the god lives in their temple. So you don't attack their temple. But guess what? All their money, all their gold is in a temple. Okay? So you're not allowed to steal each other's gold. That's stupid. Okay? Because now you don't really accomplish that much with warfare. So for the longest time, this was the status quo. Then what happened is a man named Lugalzagesi. Okay. And you can think of him as lower nobility.

So what we'll see in history is that within a city-state there's always a conflict between the upper nobility and the lower nobility. Okay, the upper nobility is in charge. They want to maintain the status quo. The lower nobility want to steal that power. Okay, this will happen in Rome where Julius Caesar is of the lower nobility and he will steal the power from the upper nobility. Okay, the people called the optimates. And so Lugalzagesi is from Umma and he's like, you know what, screw this. These rules are stupid.

I want to conquer everyone. I want to be the top dog. Okay. So what he's doing that's very different from previous times is he's now going and ransacking each city's temple. So now he has the capacity to be able to build an empire. Okay. But by doing that, what happens is that the other city-states recognize him as a threat. And so they invite mercenaries from a place called Akkad to come and help them. Okay. And this leads us to the first world empire, called the Akkadian Empire, founded by Sargon of Akkad.

Now his name is interesting. His name means legitimate ruler, which probably tells us he's not a legitimate ruler. He's probably a mercenary like David who stole the throne. Okay? He saw an opportunity and he stole the throne. But this is a pattern in history where if there's competition among different city-states, the competition is not resolved amongst themselves because they have an equilibrium. So what happens is that an outsider, a mercenary usually, comes in who doesn't respect the rules and he's able to unite everyone. Okay, through innovations. So this is why the Qin dynasty and not the Zhao or the Chu or the Wei were able to unite all of China, because the Qin dynasty was committed to total warfare.

They didn't care about your rules. They wanted to win. Okay. All right. So, as you can see, the Akkadian Empire stretches throughout the Fertile Crescent. Okay. It conquers Mesopotamia, modern Iraq, extends over to Anatolia and captures a lot of the Levant. Okay. But this area, the Levant, is historically the most strategic location in the world. Why? Because it gives you access to Egypt, Mesopotamia and Anatolia. Historically the three wealthiest parts of the world. So whoever controls the Levant is able to always threaten Egypt. Okay? And for most of history this part, the Levant, was an Egyptian colony.

But remember that after the Bronze Age collapsed Egypt was not able to project power in the Levant. And so the different empires fought for the Levant in order to threaten Egypt. Okay. So, Jerusalem is literally the center of the world and we will see that throughout history people have considered Jerusalem the center of the world both for religious reasons but also mainly for geopolitical and trade reasons. Okay. Now the other thing to remember about this area is that it's highly competitive because it's hard to protect Mesopotamia. Okay. It is very, very wealthy but as you can see there are these mountain tribes over here that can always threaten Mesopotamia.

Okay. So this is a pattern in history where whoever establishes an empire in Mesopotamia is always being threatened by the mountains, the regions, sorry, the borderlands. Okay, this is a pattern throughout Mesopotamian history and that's why these empires change all the time. Okay. So this is the Babylonian Empire. This gives us Hammurabi. Okay. Then you have the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrian Empire is famous for their brutality. If you rebel against them, they will kill everyone. Okay? They're notorious for their brutality. Now remember at this time in history, an empire is not the empire of today where you can exert authority everywhere.

An empire at this time, you're mainly controlling certain choke points of trade and everyone else just sort of goes along because it benefits them. Okay, so an empire is more like a loose confederation as opposed to a nation-state. Okay, so this is the Assyrian Empire. And this is the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Okay, so you have these empires that constantly change over time. History changes when a man emerges called Cyrus the Great. Okay. Cyrus the Great is the founder of something called the Persian Achaemenid Empire. So last class we discussed Zoroastrianism and Zoroastrianism is really the first great world religion because it provides a simple but powerful model of how the world works and Zoroastrianism is powerful because it encourages everyone to be their best, right, to seek asha.

Now, for most people, what asha means is don't ever lie. Okay? And it is actually a really useful thing if you're trying to run an empire because when you run an empire, you need soldiers, you need generals, you need administrators, right? And if people don't lie, if people are honest and moral, well, you can expand really quickly, right? And so that's what Cyrus the Great did. Cyrus the Great is also known for his mercy and his generosity. So when he conquers a place, what he will do is he will identify the best people, maybe the king himself, and make them advisers to his regime.

Okay, he's known for his tolerance, he's known for his openness, and so what happens is that the Babylonian Empire basically surrendered to him without a fight. Why? Because of elite overproduction, right? You have this war going on between the upper nobility and the lower nobility and they're like, you know what? Let's just invite Cyrus the Great and then we don't have to fight each other anymore. Okay? And that's how Cyrus the Great was able to build the first world empire. Okay? This is Babylon, the fall of Babylon.

And Cyrus the Great, there are different stories, but one story is that they basically invited him in in order to resolve their inner conflicts with each other. Okay.

This is the tomb of Cyrus the Great. It's still in Iran today. There's a story that when Alexander the Great, you know, who was Macedonian, when he went to conquer the Persian Empire, he discovered that Cyrus the Great's tomb was in bad repair. They didn't really maintain or upkeep it. So, he ordered for it to be properly maintained. Okay, that story is, by the way, probably false. But it shows you that at this time in history, about the year 300, 400, everyone, 300, 400 BC, everyone was respectful of Cyrus.

Okay. Cyrus the Great is considered the world's greatest king or... Okay. So as you can see the Persian Empire is huge. Okay. It encompasses most of West Asia. Okay. So, it goes from Iran all the way to Mesopotamia to Anatolia to parts of Greece and basically all of Egypt and Libya. Okay. It's a huge area and they were able to do this because of their innovations in religion as well as administration. Okay. All right. So, let me explain how do you rule empires usually. Okay. Well, the traditional way is you control trade routes and access.

Okay. So, people have to pay you a tax to go through your trade routes. That's a traditional way. You can also use fear and conquest. That's what the Assyrians were known for. They would come and they would kill everyone if you disobeyed them. You took hostages. That's a very common thing where you conquer people and you take the children of the king as hostages. Okay. In a marriage, religion, but what the Persians did really well that allowed the Persian Empire to be so huge as well as to be really well managed are four things.

Okay, effective administration. Again, when you have a religion, Zoroastrianism, where people can't lie, that's really good because these bureaucrats will now report real facts to the emperor and that allows him to make better decisions. Okay, elite cultivation, meritocracy. And the idea here is that if you have a very effective administration, that allows for local elites to focus their energies on trying to join this administration as opposed to rebelling against you. Communication networks, okay? So things like roads, things like postal networks. Okay. So, the Persians created the first global postal system and it was really effective where you want to send mail from Egypt over to Mesopotamia, what would happen is you would have these royal roads where people would ride on horses and they could stop at basically a hostel to rest and then keep on going.

Okay. And that way you can very quickly move information from one corner of the empire to the other. Okay. And the last is divide and rule. Divide and rule is really important. So what they did was they basically had different power centers within a region. Okay. So you had the satraps, which were the local governors, but then you also had the bureaucrats. Okay. You also had the royal representatives. So these are different factions within a region. Okay.

So divide and rule is probably the most effective way to control an empire. Okay. So now let's move on to Israel. Okay. We now know about the Persian Empire, how they managed their system and why they are so effective. Okay. Now let's talk about Israel. So remember that we read the Bible, and the Bible came about because David needed to justify and legitimize his rule. And after the Bronze Age collapsed, David created a Davidic kingdom in the Levant because Egypt, Anatolia, Mesopotamia were preoccupied, right? But because the Levant is so important, this limited kingdom doesn't really last that long.

It lasts for like 80, 200 years. Okay. After Solomon, David's son, dies, Israel is divided into two parts. The northern kingdom, which gets conquered by Assyria, as well as Judah. Okay. Jerusalem, which tries to maintain the kingdom but doesn't last very long. At this time in history the Israelites are being pulled in different directions. Okay. The Anatolians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, because they are strategically very important. And so what's really hard for these empires is how do we maintain control over Jerusalem? Okay. And they try different techniques.

They try burning down their city centers. Okay, so the northern kingdom was destroyed. You might have heard of the 10 lost tribes of Israel. They tried taking hostages. Okay, but because this region is so volatile, nothing really works. And so Jerusalem, the Israelites keep on rebelling. Okay.

So this is a king of Judah and what happens is for the longest time the Babylonians are trying to deal with the Israelites. Okay? So they take hostages. Okay? They take hostages, like thousands of them, and move them to Babylon where they become scribes, where they become farmers, where they become merchants.

But again the region is so strategically important that Jerusalem, the Israelites, they switch loyalties all the time. Eventually the Babylonians are so pissed off that they decided to burn down their temple. Okay. And so at this point in history the Israelites are now gone. Okay. Does that make sense? The Israelites are gone now. 587 to 6. We don't know when, but Babylon destroyed Jerusalem because they tried many techniques to try to control Jerusalem. They can't do it. The Israelites are too rebellious. But it's too strategically important.

So they destroy. So they decide, you know what, screw this. We'll just destroy the city. Okay. So when this happens, okay, that's really important for you to understand. The Israelites are gone. Okay, the people are still around. The identity of the Israelites is now gone.

So, now you pray in a synagogue. Okay? So, the people have changed a great deal. So, the question now is why would Cyrus the Great go to Babylon and say, "You know what? I want you Israelites to return to Jerusalem. I want you to reconstitute the nation of Israel." Why would he do that?

Okay. So, this is going to be a debate that will never ever end. Okay. So, the Bible tells us that Cyrus the Great did this because God told him to do that. Really simple. God says, "I love my people. The Israelites, send them home." Okay? And Cyrus says, "Yes, of course, you're the great God. I'll do so." Okay, guys. That's how it happened. Okay. All right. So, there are different explanations. Maybe the idea is that Cyrus wants to show all the Persian Empire, I'm religiously tolerant. You can practice your religion.

You can set up your religion. That's what the Persian Empire is, an open, tolerant, generous empire. Okay, that's true. What's also true is that Cyrus thought of himself as a righteous and merciful king who wanted to be generous to everyone. Okay, so he saw the Israelites wanted to go home. He says, "Well, you can go home." Okay. It's also possible that there's a faction within the Israelites who supported his Babylon takeover. Okay, I don't know if this is true. It's probably not true, but we consider that as a possibility, that the Israelites in Babylon supported his takeover.

And so to thank them, Cyrus said, "Fine, I'll give you back Jerusalem." Another possibility is that when Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon, he discovered that, you know what, these Israelites are really good administrators, and this is true throughout history, because remember the Israelites have their Bible and the religion requires them to study the Bible and as we discussed the Bible is one of debate, openness, asking questions and so these are very literate intellectuals and they rise up very high in the Babylonian administration. But this is true throughout history where Jewish people will rise very high in all empires, including the Islamic empire, including the American empire.

I think the best reason for what happened is divide and rule. Okay. So the idea is that you need to control the Levant because the Levant gives you access to Egypt which is historically the wealthiest part of the world. Okay. Whoever controls Egypt controls the world. So what you do is you set up a group of people in the Levant that are only loyal to you. Okay? Does that make sense? Okay. You set up people in the Levant that only exist because you, the empire, allow them to exist. If you, the empire, did not support them, then the locals, everyone in that region, would get rid of them right away.

Okay? And that's why we have the Jews. So the Jews were invented by the Persians to control the Levant. "Jews" is actually a Persian term. Okay. So before the Jews were of course the Israelites. Now we have the Jews. All right. So this is Jerusalem. And as you can see, what's really important to understand is that this is actually only a really small part of the Levant. But this part is specifically for the Jews.

And it's part of this Persian province called Beyond the River. Okay?

But what happens is that these exiles from Babylon, they come back and they say, "No, we're the true Israelites. You guys are the false Israelites. The reason why we're true is we have stayed loyal to our religion." Okay? So what's going to happen over the next few decades is almost a civil war between Israelites who've stayed and Israelites who left but come back. All right? And this is what the Persian Empire wants in order to maintain stability in the Levant. Right? Because you have this small minority of exiles from Babylon who've come back and they're in conflict with everyone else.

All right. This is divide and rule. Okay. So could you, sorry, let me...

Okay.

The Jews are extremely thankful for Cyrus because not only does he allow them to go back to Jerusalem, but he also finances the rebuilding of the temple. Okay? But when this happens, when they go back and try to rebuild a temple, the locals get pissed off. Okay? Because, like, who are you people? You're still our religion, like, what's going on here? Okay. And this creates a lot of conflict. That's good for the Persian Empire because they want this conflict, right? As part of their divide and rule strategy.

Okay. All right.

"For the people shouted so loudly that the sound was heard far away."

Okay. All right. Can you continue?

Sorry, this is a bit long. Okay. But can you try to read?

For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the law of your God, which is in your hand, and also to convey the silver and gold that the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, with all the silver and gold that you shall find in the whole province of Babylonia, and with the freewill offerings of the people and the priests, given willingly for the house of their God in Jerusalem.

With this money, then, you shall with all diligence buy bulls, rams and lambs, and their grain offerings and their drink offerings, and you shall offer them on the altar of the house of your God..." and to raise.

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation."

Okay, so this Balfour Declaration creates the current nation of Israel, okay, which was founded in 1948. So the nation of Israel was created by the British as part of their geopolitical strategy of dividing and conquering the Middle East and we'll discuss this later on. Okay. But it's really important for you guys to keep in mind as we move forward. All right. Can you read the highlighted part? Okay.

For we are slaves; yet our God has not forsaken us in our slavery, but has extended to us his steadfast love before the kings of Persia, to give us new life to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem."

Come on.

The second thing that they're really known for is they don't marry outside their religion. Jewish women will refuse to marry foreign men. Okay? And so, now we have the concept of blood purity. That is new. So remember it's really important for us to understand that the Jews and the Israelites are not the same people. Okay. In fact what Israel is doing is rejecting the Israelite heritage and establishing a new heritage based on blood purity and a monotheistic devotion to Yahweh. And this is new. Okay. That's why I keep on saying this.

The Jews of Persia are not the same as the Israelites of David. All right. So, as you can see from this map, the Jews are in this area and it's a very small part of the Levant, but it's a part of the Levant that's completely loyal to Persia, okay? Because they see everyone else as unclean, as the enemy. And if you're an empire, having the Jews around is really good for you, right? All right. And so the Jews are an invention of the Persians, but guess what? The nation of Israel is also an invention of the British Empire.

And we'll discuss this later on. All right. So we move on to the second book called Nehemiah. So Ezra is the priest who will create the Bible. Nehemiah is the governor sent by the Persians to reestablish the Jewish nation. Okay. So okay, can you read the highlighted part?

Then I said to the king, 'If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor with you, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my ancestors' graves, so that I may rebuild it.' The king said to me, the queen also sitting beside him, 'How long will you be gone, and when will you return?' So it pleased the king to send me. And I set him a date.

Then I said to the king, 'If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors of the province Beyond the River, that they may grant me passage until I arrive in Judah; and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, directing him to give me timber to make beams for the gates of the temple fortress, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy.' And the king granted me what I asked, for the gracious hand of my God was upon me."

Okay. So the Bible says that Nehemiah one day feels tremendous regret that the city of his ancestors has not been rebuilt. Okay? And he begs the king for permission to go back. Guys, this is not how empires work. Okay? This is not how empires work. You do not ask the king or the emperor for anything because he will just cut your head off. Okay? How empires work is that you have to read the king's intentions, right? You have to figure out what does he really want? And then you have to say, please, please, I want to do this, not because you asked me to do this but because I want to do this myself.

Okay. And I will work hard to achieve this ambition. That's how empires work. All right. The king does not tell you what he wants. You have to guess what he wants. If you can guess what he wants, then you get promoted. If you can't guess what he wants, then you get your head cut off. All right. That's how empires work. This is important because when we move on to the nation of Israel, most people believe that the nation of Israel started with the Zionist movement which came with the writing of a book called Judand fatherland, written by this German Jewish journalist called Theodor Herzl.

And so people say Zionism started 100 years ago. Guys, when we do the next state of Israel, we will discover that it's actually part of the British imperial policy. Okay? But the British themselves cannot be seen as the ones who are promoting the creation of the state of Israel because it makes them look bad. Okay? Because everyone else would be like, why are you doing this? So what they have to do is create a situation in which the Jews themselves want to create their own nation.

The problem though, and this is really important, we'll discuss this later, is that 100 years ago, guess what? Jews did not want to go to Jerusalem because they were happy where they were. Okay? There were a lot of Jews who were pretty happy in Babylon, but they were sent back in order to create this province Judah and to create all this conflict with the locals. Okay? That's how empires work.

Okay. All right. So, when Nehemiah goes back, what he's going to do is he's going to build the temple and he's going to build the walls. This is going to piss everyone off, right? Because, like, why would you do that? We're all living happily together. We're all one big family, and now you're building these walls, which means that you're better than us or you're afraid of us or you want to conquer us. Okay? So this creates all these conflicts with the locals which is again what the Persian Empire wants to happen.

This is how empires work. All right. Okay. Can you read?

our children are the same as their children; yet we are forcing our sons and daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have been ravished; we are powerless, and our fields and vineyards now belong to..."

So I said, 'The thing that you are doing is not good. Should you not walk in the fear of our God, to prevent the taunts of the nations our enemies? Moreover I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Let us stop this taking of interest. Restore to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their houses, and the interest on money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them.' Then they said, 'We will restore everything and demand nothing more from them.

We will do as you say.' And I called the priests, and took an oath of them to do as they had promised. I also shook out the fold of my garment and said, 'So may God shake out everyone from house and from property who does not perform this promise. Thus may they be shaken out and emptied.' And all the assembly said, 'Amen,' and praised the Lord. And the people did as they had..."

If you want to start a business or if you want to buy a house, you want to do anything, because Jews are not allowed to collect interest from each other. That's how unified they are as a people. Okay.

Okay. So, just read the top and the highlight and that's it.

and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law."

And this makes the Jewish people extremely resilient because no matter where they are, no matter how low the... goes, their memory, their historical identity is always stored in one Bible. That makes them the world's most resilient, flexible and open people. Okay. So this begins the Bible. Okay. Keep on...

And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but spoke the language of various peoples. And I contended with them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair; and I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, 'You shall not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. Did not King Solomon of Israel sin on account of such women? Among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel.

Nevertheless, foreign women made even him to sin. Shall we then listen to you and do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women?'" Okay.

All right? So, this is their interpretation of monotheism. So as you can see there are certain traditions about the Jews that were created during the Persian Empire in order to facilitate Persia's control of the Levant. But these traditions, because they are encoded in the Bible, stay with us even today. But not only that, by reading the Bible carefully and understanding how to connect the Bible to historical development, you can now figure out how Israel will develop over the next 10, 20 years. Okay? And these are my, sorry, these are my three predictions.

First of all, they're going to rebuild the Temple of Solomon. Okay? They're going to build the Third Temple by destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque. They're going to do that sooner or later. Okay? That's the first thing they're going to do. And you know why? Because when we read the Bible, you can see how happy they were. Okay? Because they felt completed. They felt as though God is with us. God has forgiven us. God loves us. Okay? So building the Third Temple is crucial to the identity of Israel today.

Okay? Okay. So, they're going to do this and it's going to cause a lot of problems because again the mosque is the third holiest site in the Islamic world and it's going to create a lot of conflict between Israel and the Islamic world. Okay. Do they care? Not really. Okay. Number two, you can see how when the Jews returned, they were convinced that they were forced out of Jerusalem because they offended God. Okay? So in other words, if Jews want to maintain control over Israel, they need to obey the laws of God, which means that they have become a theocracy.

Okay? Now, I'm not sure if you've been to Israel. I've been to Israel. And if you go to a place like Tel Aviv, it's a very open, liberal, cosmopolitan, forward-looking place. Okay? I think that Tel Aviv has one of the world's highest concentrations of gays in the world.

Okay. So this is just an introduction but the thing I want you guys to remember is that first of all the Jewish identity is fluid. It's flexible. It's open. It was created by empire for the purpose of maintaining empire. Okay. And we're going to see this throughout history as well. All right. So, was this clear to you guys? Are there any questions about today? Okay. Yeah. So, how does the Persian state control, like, Persian control of Jerusalem transfer to modern-day society? Like, how does it still work?

Because I think we're seeing a trend that Israel's going kind of more back to depending on the Bible and everything. So, how does it transfer to modern-day society and all the conflicts that are happening?

America's the empire, right? Israel has all these conflicts with nations in the Middle East, right? They have conflicts with Turkey. They have conflicts with Egypt. They have conflicts with the Gulf nations. They have conflicts with basically everyone. Okay. So, who does everyone require to manage this conflict? America, right? Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, Egypt, they all require the United States to come in and say, "Hey guys, let's just get along. We're just one big family." Okay? This is all intentional in order for America to maintain dominance over the Middle East.

Who's very unhappy about this? Which nation is very unhappy about this? Israel. Okay. Right. Israel is going to be pissed about this. So we can expect that over time what's going to happen is a major conflict between America and Israel. There's going to be a divorce basically. And my argument to you is that Israel will win this conflict and as a result Israel will become the dominant power in the Middle East because the Jews know their own history. The Jews read the Bible every day. They know what the Persians did.

They know what the British did. They know what the Americans are doing today. They don't want this. They don't want to become a servant, a slave, to empire.

What we call the Jewish diaspora. And there are a lot of Jews in the world who oppose the nation of Israel because, well, what the nation of Israel is doing, they believe, goes against the will of God. Okay. So, Israelis, not Jews. Okay.

And these Palestinians can be moved elsewhere, to Jordan, to Egypt. They don't really care. Okay. But this process will take time. Okay. Okay. All right. Any more questions, guys?

Okay, great. So, was this clear? The ideas in this class are clear. Okay, so next class what we will do is we will do the Greek Empire. Okay, and then after that we'll do the Roman Empire and after that we will do Christianity. Okay, so we're going through history fairly quickly. But I need you to keep these ideas in mind because they will build on top of each other. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank