Those Jewishy Jews

Sorry about being late with the post. Let's just say stuff happened and leave it at that.

So apparently I was wrong about how they went about smuggling Marjorie back to the GC. I thought that they used the GC truck to do it but apparently they've kept it and been monitoring GC transmissions. Now I can't help but think that if Marjorie's safely back in GC hands, she's probably ratted them out for stealing the truck meaning that the GC should be looking for them or at least they should have changed their radio stations so the YTF can't casually listen in on their transmissions.

So the YTF listen in on the eeevil GC and we learn that the eevil GC has decided to very eeevilly give their Morale Monitors stun-guns so that if they suspect someone's a Judah-ite, they can just stun them into submission. Y'know what would work better for an evil government run by the anti-Christ: actual guns. That way they don't have to bother with imprisoning them and wasting valuable resources feeding and sheltering them. Remember the world only has maybe three or four years to live so there's really no point in reeducation.

The section ends with the YTF hearing the sound of GC helicopters. But just in case you were afraid something might actually happen that might endanger their operation, fear not. Conrad throws a sheet over the truck's satellite dish and they continue their work.

In Israel, Judd meets up with Mr. Stein who's at the meeting handing out his pamphlets, when he runs into some Orthodox Jews. Mr. Stein tries to convert them but the Orthodox Jews are all inscrutable and Jewish and say that while they hate Carpathia, they do not believe Jesus is the Messiah. I could question how Mr. Stein could tell they were Orthodox Jews given that Ellanjay seem to believe that Jews have a hive mind; therefore they all wear forelocks and have beards and all the accoutrements associated with Hassidic Jews. Anyone wanna tell them about Reform Jews? Again, I'm going to defer to Gershom Gorenberg's take on Left Behind's treatment of Jews:

The experience is jarring, like meeting someone who calls you by your name, insists he knows you, remembers you from a high school you didn't attend, a job you never had. I'm reading a book set largely in the country where I live — but not really, because the authors' Israel is a landscape of their imagination, and the characters called "Jews" might as well be named hobbits or warlocks. Israel and Jews are central to Nicolae and the other books of the hugely successful Left Behind series — but the country belongs to the map of a Christian myth; the people speak lines from a script foreign to flesh-and-blood Jews.

But the eeevil GC peace-keepers burst in. Everyone's scared except the brave RTCs, of course. Mr. Stein starts praying and suddenly, the peace-keepers are swept aside. One starts freaking out about the two men surrounding Mr. Stein, which the astute reader knows are angels, and the chapter ends with Mr. Stein saying this:

Mr. Stein smiled. “God has protected us again. We asked for his help and he has given it.”

Uh, what about all those innocent children and babies who died from drinking bad water? What about all those RTC groups that got arrested because the YTF trusted Chris Traickin when they really shouldn't have? Nice to know that Zod personally decided to take time out from killing everybody so none should perish to help you out. I know it's not an exact parallel but I'm reminded of Snopes's takedown of a very obnoxious glurge.

Next chapter begins with the YTF working towards setting their plan to hijack the GC broadcast in motion. But that's kind of boring, so let's jump back to Israel.

The Peace-keepers want to run like hell but Mr. Stein talks them into staying and hearing the message. Afterwards, several pray and Judd is approached by a man who gives him a business car. Given that the man is given two sentences worth of cliched description, I immediately knew he would be eventually given a name and play a bigger role than a mere walk-on. Turns out I'm right. His name is General Solomon Zimmerman, and given what's later revealed about him being an Israeli general that makes yet another Jewish character with a Jewy McJew kind of name.

So they go to General Jew's (that's my name for this guy) house. To Judd's surprise, General Jew has several copies of the Bible because no one in Ellanjayland collects religious literature because they have a general interest in religion. He admits though, he didn't collect these Bibles because he always believed the truth.

“I studied the Bible because to me it was a book of warfare. In my military history classes I learned, and later taught, about the many battles described in what you call the Old Testament. There is great wisdom in the way Gideon divided his men, the way King David attacked the Philistines, and of course, God’s soldier Joshua, and the way he took Jericho. In all the time I studied those battles, I never considered them of any spiritual importance. They were simply stories. Now that I know the truth, they are much more than stories.”

Uh, I'm fairly certain the Jewish scripture covers most of the Old Testament and that the general wouldn't have to get Bibles to read about King David and Joshua. Also, while the Old Testament is an interesting work that contains several battles, I'm not sure how it works as a guide to military strategy. For example, I'm fairly certain that we can't count on the sun to stay up to give us longer time to kill our enemies and the jawbone of an ass probably wouldn't do much against tanks and machine guns. Just a thought.

But it turns out the General witnessed the Russian-Ethiopian-Third Country I've forgotten attack on Israel. Lionel asks him about it and the bulk of the section is taken up with him describing what happened.

Meanwhile, in America, the YTF are continuing to work on their plan to hijack the satellite. There is a brief mention from Conrad about his brother, aka the awesome Taylor Graham, which really should have come up sooner given that they're freaking brothers you'd think Conrad would actually care that Taylor died unsaved and is burning in Hell for all eternity. This moment is over quickly and it doesn't mention the "Burning in Hell" part.

But the chapter ends with a horrifying discovery: the satellite has been damaged so they can't send out their message. Uh-oh, this would actually be worrying if I didn't know that nothing bad happens to the YTF and I couldn't smell a divine intervention coming in off the port valve.