Yehuda Kaploun, Donald Trump’s nominee for Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, plans to attack the First Amendment
In an article titled “Why Are Americans Being Placed Under a Speech Tsar?”1 Paul Craig Roberts warns about a significant threat to the fundamental constitutional right of free speech by the Jewish lobby.
Yet for all its seriousness, there’s hardly any discussion about it in the mainstream press. No surprise there. Lying by commission, or in this case, omission, is the whole point of the mainstream press, liberal or conservative.
In his piece, Roberts writes,
President Trump’s alliance with Israel is giving us Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun as Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. The Special Envoy’s job is to suppress free speech if it involves criticism of any Israeli policy, including the ongoing genocide of Palestine and its remaining people.
To give you some sense of the anti-American arrogance of this unbelieving rabbi, see this recent video2 where he comments about a man who dared protest him, saying that he “will be quite sorry shortly that he did that.” Kaploun made no allegations that the man did anything illegal. Simply the act of protesting him was enough to elicit this dark threat.
In his article “Christians and the Civil War,”3 John Robbins noted that the 1796 Tennessee Constitution “prevented ministers from holding legislative office. If the phrase ‘separation of church and state’ means anything, it must mean that the same person cannot hold office in both church and state.”
If Tennessee prohibited a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ from holding office, how much more is an unbelieving rabbi unfit to hold public office, all for the purpose of throttling Americans’ God-given, Constitutionally guaranteed right of free speech.
The seriousness of the Zionist threat to American liberty was underscored by Professor John Mearsheimer. In an appearance on Judging Freedom on 3/13/2025, Mearsheimer said,
The truth is, Judge, that the single greatest threat to freedom of speech in the United States at this point in time is Israel and its supporters here in the United States. It’s truly amazing the extent to which Israel’s supporters are going to enormous lengths to shut down free speech, not only on university campuses but all across the country.4
If Americans are going to retain their most cherished rights, they must insist on the separation of synagogue and state.
Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, Trump’s Israeli-born Chabadnik nominee for US Anti-Semitism Czar, says his being protested is an example of ‘anti-Semitism’ and says a man who protested him “will be quite sorry shortly that he did that.” Apparently, the Trump Administration wants Americans to be ruled by a modern-day Sanhedrin. ↩︎
Last week, we examined some of Donald Trump’s cabinet picks and found that many of them are actually more MIGA (Make Israel Great Again) than MAGA (Make America Great Again). Unfortunately, that trend has continued and requires further commentary.
Donald Trump shocked Washington by announcing Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz as his pick to be the next Attorney General (AG). As you may know, Gaetz withdrew himself from consideration for the AG role, and in his place, Trump nominated former Florida AG Pam Bondi.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, addresses the U.S. Congress on July 24, 2024 in Washington. Josh Morgan, USA Today.
All three religions – Romanism, Islam, and Judaism – are false, militant, and violent.
John W. Robbins, “The Religious Wars of the 21st Century”
In a piece I have cited several times before in this space, John Robbins commenting on the coming religious wars of the 21st century noted that “the religious right in America has embraced both Romanism and Judaism as saviors of the West, foolishly ignorant of the fact that they, as forms of unbelief, are destroyers of the West and causes of the collapse [of the West].”[1]
As I have noted previously, Robbins does something in his article that I have never seen done by any other writer. Rather than taking sides with Romanism, Judaism, or Islam, he describes all three as “medieval…false, militant, and violent.” But unlike Robbins, many Evangelicals do take sides with either Romanism or Judaism against the secularists and Islam.
In America, one likely would not find those who claim to be Christians, at least those of the “religious right” variety, embracing Islam. Unlike Romanism and Judaism, Islam is viewed with suspicion by the religious right due to events such as 9/11, the influence of dispensationalism, and the work of the Israel lobby.
One may be tempted to question Robbins’ characterization of Romanism, Islam, and Judaism as destroyers of the West. After all, didn’t Christianity Today run a piece in 2015 titled “From Antichrist to Brother in Christ: How Protestant Pastors View the Pope”? Further, American Christians are constantly told that they have a Biblical obligation to support the state of Israel and the Jews as “God’s chosen people.”[2]
“This is like the modern version of Amalek. Until they’re (apparently referring to the Palestinians) wiped out, this is just going to go on and on and on and on.”
These were the words of no less an Evangelical light than John MacArthur in an interview with Ben Shapiro.
I’d like to say that MacArthur’s words were a rarity among American Protestants, but they are not. A substantial portion of the American Evangelical church is caught up in the superstition that is dispensationalism, a view of the end times that rose to prominence in the 19th century. For them, dispensationalism is the lens that colors their view of events in the Middle East. And so great is that coloring that they end up supporting anti-liberty political Judaism while destroying the Biblical system of political Protestantism set up by their forebears.
I’m not an expert on John MacArthur’s views on the end times, but I did find this article that seems to be consistent with his statement to Ben Shapiro. In it, MacArthur calls himself a “leaky dispensationalist,” by which he seems to mean that he’s not one of those crazy sorts of dispensationalists but is of a more rational spirit. Very well. But for all that, his stance on how Israel should conduct the war in Gaza, and by implication America’s obligation to support Israel’s war efforts, is not much different than Zionist wingnuts like Sen. Lindsey Graham, who called for Israel to nuke Gaza[1] or Nikki Haley writing “finish them” on an Israeli shell.[2]
What I find interesting about men such as MacArthur is that they continue to push the position that the American people have a God-given responsibility to ask “how high” every time the Israel lobby commands them and their elected officials to jump. By their words and actions, they show that they believe that the American people are, in fact, subordinate to the Israelis based on their warped interpretation of eschatology.
Take, for example, the Israel lobby’s attack on the First Amendment. At the behest of Jewish Zionists,[3] the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill called the Antisemitism Awareness Act that would, in effect, make all criticism of Israel and Jews illegal on college campuses.[4] Given the antisemitism laws in effect in Europe and Canada, it’s reasonable that the Israel lobby won’t be satisfied with quashing all criticism of Israel and Jews only on college campuses. They will work to impose such laws on American society at large, the First Amendment notwithstanding.
The First Amendment prohibits Congress from establishing a church, abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government. It is among the crowning achievements of political Protestantism. The First Amendment guarantees that Christians have the right to proclaim the gospel of Justification by Faith (Belief) Alone. If faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God, then, of course, freedom of speech is critical to the spread of the gospel. And since spiritual liberty begets political and economic liberty, free speech is also necessary to the creation and maintenance of our republic and the rights guaranteed under our Constitution.
So why do John MacArthur and others, instead of taking the side of political Protestantism as they should, prefer instead to support Zionism, which is an expression of political Judaism? Political Judaism lacks the necessary ideas to create or sustain a free society. Do these Christian Zionists not understand that Zionism and our God-given liberties protected by our Constitution are incompatible?
In the New Testament, we have several clear examples of what those who adhere to political Judaism think about free speech. They hate it. They had Christ crucified because they didn’t like his sermons. Even before the crucifixion, there were attempts on Jesus’s life simply for what he said.
The Sanhedrin beat Peter and John for what? For preaching the gospel. The Sanhedrin didn’t believe in freedom of speech. In 2024, the modern-day Sanhedrin in the form of the ADL, AIPAC, and other Jewish organizations and individuals[5] likewise do not believe in free speech and call for college kids and professors who protest Israel to be beaten, suspended, doxed, and prevented from working. They are political thugs whose ideas and actions are incompatible with a free society. Many Christians, who, like the Sanhedrin, also do not believe in freedom of speech, agree. But the Constitution, an expression of political Protestantism, says that college students have the right to peacefully protest Israel.
Political Judaism says, “Don’t say that, or we’ll throw you in jail.” Why do American Protestants fail to take their own side by defending political Protestantism’s principle of free speech? Why do they side with political Judaism against the commands of Scripture and their own best interests? A big part of the answer is their foolish and unscriptural dispensationalist eschatology.
Other Protestants, seeing the problems with political Judaism, prefer to side with Rome instead. One popular expression of political Romanism is Christian Nationalism, which calls for Protestants to make a grand alliance with Romanism and Eastern Orthodoxy to rebuild Christendom. Christians should not side with political Romanism or Orthodoxy, which, like political Judaism, are forms of unbelief lacking the necessary ideas to create and sustain a free society.
Satan fills this world with all manner of distractions, including false theologies and philosophies designed to fool, if possible, even the elect. It’s time for American Protestants to take Jesus’s words seriously, “Take heed that no man deceive you.”
[3] See this post of X from AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) from May 1, 2024. AIPAC, an organization committed to advancing political Judaism, is delighted at the Antisemitism Awareness Act’s attack on the First Amendment.
[5] One of the most vocal individuals attacking the right to protest Israel is billionaire investor Bill Ackman. Ackman demanded that Harvard University (his alma mater) name the Harvard students blaming Israel for the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023. This is a tactic known as “doxing,” which is “Typically…a malicious act, used against people with whom the hacker disagrees or dislikes. Doxing…is the act of revealing identifying information about someone online, such as their real name, home address, workplace, phone, financial, and other personal information.” (Kaspersky, https://usa.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/what-is-doxing). Ackman claims to believe in free speech while at the same time acting like some mafia Don, saying to student protestors, in effect, “You’ll never work in this town again!”
US Rep. Elise Stefanik speaks at a Knesset caucus meeting on May 19, 2024 (Sam Sokol/Times of Israel)
“The U.S. government is manipulated by foreign interests. Both Israel and the Vatican see the United States as their proxy in this religious war.”
John W. Robbins, “The Religious Wars of the 21st Century”
As long-time readers of this blog know, John Robbins has done more to shape my thinking on a whole range of topics than any other writer.
Dr. Robbins was blessed with extraordinary insight into theology, philosophy, politics, and economics. I doubt there is a sentence that I’ve written in the 15 years of writing the Lux Lucet blog that has not been shaped by his influence.
And just to prove the remarkable insight that he had, I’m going to once again refer to Robbins’ Trinity Review published in 2006, “The Religious Wars of the 21st Century.” The whole essay is well worth reading and commenting on. But for the sake of time, I’m going to restrict myself to just the two sentences quoted at the top of this post.
Robbins’ insight in these lines is both brilliant and simple at the same time. Note that he understands, correctly, that both Israel and the Vatican manipulate the U.S. government for their own ends. It’s not just one or the other. It is both. This is a great danger to our republic in that neither Judaism nor Roman Catholicism has the necessary ideas to create or sustain a free society. The greater their influence on our government, the more liberty Americans lose.
Tucker Carlson’s post on X from May 2, 2024, commenting on the Antisemitism Awareness Act. In another post on X, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) noted, “Speaker Mike Johnson was so eager to please AIPAC that he didn’t read the bill he rushed to the floor.”
As if it weren’t enough for the GOP to betray America and its voter base by voting to send money to fund wars in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, they followed it up with another outrage last week by helping to pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act (AAA) that, among other things, logically implies that the New Testament is antisemitic and illegal.
The bill has not yet passed the Senate or been signed into law by the President, so it’s not law yet. But if it does become law – and I think it’s likely that it will – your Bible will be considered legally antisemitic. At least as far as the Department of Education (DOE) is concerned. Based on my reading of the bill and the comments of others, it appears that the bill empowers only the DOE to “take into consideration the definition of antisemitism” used in the bill.
“But,” someone may argue, “the AAA has a sentence that reads, “Nothing in this Act shall be construed to diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment.” To which the proper response is, yes, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act has explicit language prohibiting racial quotas, too. But in 1968, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) implemented Affirmative Action anyway, which is the system of racial quotas Americans have suffered under for over 50 years now. There is no reason for Americans to believe that this language against restrictions on the First Amendment will have any bearing on how the DOE administers the AAA. As has been pointed out by others, the way lawmaking works in our technocratic, bureaucratic state, Congressional bills are little more than authorizations for the Executive Branch departments to make rules pursuant to the authorization. I have no doubt that the DOE will use AAA to infringe upon Americans’ God-given, Constitutionally-guaranteed right of free speech.
South Dakota Governor signs bill attacking the First Amendment.
Last week we looked at the foolish and dangerous law signed by South Dakota Kristi Noem that incorporates the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) “working definition of antisemitism” into state law. According to the IHRA’s definition, “claims that Jews kill[ed] Jesus” are considered antisemitic.
The problem with this is that the Word of God clearly and repeatedly teaches that the Jews did, in fact, kill Jesus Christ. Stephen the deacon went even further in his description of the Jews who put him on trial. He called the “betrayers” and “murderers” of Christ. Any law that criminalizes, or, potentially criminalizes, teaching what the Word of God says is unjust, as it contradicts the Word of God. Thus, there are good reasons for opposing South Dakota’s “model legislation,” which the Governor says will be replicated in states nationwide.
Now I doubt the South Dakota state police will be kicking down church doors next Sunday and dragging Christian ministers out of their pulpits for preaching from Acts 7:52. More likely, the South Dakota law will function similarly to a law recently passed in Georgia. There, Governor Brian Kemp signed a bill in January of this year. According to one of the supporters, “the definition will only come into play after someone has committed a crime.”[1] This is still objectionable, dangerous, unconstitutional, and unchristian as it criminalizes speech, if only indirectly, and is, in my opinion, designed to conceal the tyrannical intent behind such laws of attacking the First Amendment, if only indirectly. But who’s to say charging Christian ministers for preaching the Word of God is not the end goal of those who promote legislation of this sort? Given the attacks on free speech throughout the West, preventing Christian pastors from honestly teaching about the role the Jews played in the murder of Christ may very well be the end goal of those who lobby for such legislation.
South Dakota Governor signs bill attacking the First Amendment.
“Because Christianity is neither Romanism nor Judaism nor Islam, there is no need for the United States, a historically, if not currently, Christian nation, to be involved in the religious wars of the twenty-first century. But because of the influence of American citizens (and non-citizens) who are Jews, Catholics, and Dispensational Evangelicals, we are already involved. In fact, because of our foreign policy of interventionism developed in the twentieth century, and because of our more recent policy of pre-emptive war, the United States has become the primary target of militant Muslims worldwide. And not of Muslims only. Agents of both Israel and Rome are active in the United States, both gathering intelligence and influencing policy. The U. S. government is manipulated by foreign interests.Both Israel and the Vatican see the United States as their proxy in this religious war”[1](emphasis mine).
The bill, titled “An Act to require the consideration of the definition of antisemitism when investigating unfair or discriminatory practices,” reads,
In reviewing, investigating, or deciding whether an alleged violation of this chapter is antisemitic, the Division of Human Rights must consider the definition of antisemitism. For the purposes of this chapter, the term “antisemitism” has the same meaning as the working definition of antisemitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance on May 26, 2016, including the contemporary examples of antisemitism identified therein.
Nothing in this section may be construed to diminish or infringe upon any protected right under U.S. Const., amend. I or S.D. Const., Art. VI, § 5, or to conflict with any federal, state, or local discrimination law.
Pay special attention to the second paragraph. It notes, “Nothing in the section may be construed to diminish or infringe upon any protected right under U.S. Const., amend I….” This is typical of the double-speak of our time where it is almost a sure-fire guarantee that any statement by a politician, academic, or journalist almost certainly means the exact opposite of what it claims to mean. This bill is surely an attack on the First Amendment to insulate Jews and Israel from criticism.
The Biden administration announced a plan to fight antisemitism. Credit…Tom Brenner for The New York Times
It’s truly surprising how much Western governments hate their own people.
It sounds strange to say it. But it’s true almost without exception.
The Canadian government hates Canadians. The British government hates the British. Just as Germany’s government holds its own people in contempt. France likewise.
America is no exception to this rule. The Democrats have expressed their hatred of the American people and in particular the historic core population of this nation, white Protestants, for as long as I can remember. But it’s not just Democrats. Much of the conservative and Republican establishment couldn’t wait to denounce their own voters during the George Floyd riots in the summer of 2020.
From my observation, Hungary’s Calvinist Prime Minister Viktor Orban is the only exception to this rule. As he wrote in a tweet in March of this year, “We respect and help the Ukrainians. There is one thing we won’t do: to put their interests ahead of ours. As Prime Minister of Hungary, I am responsible for the Hungarian nation. Therefore we will always put Hungary first! This is my moral compass.”
If only America had a government that defended the interests of Americans the same way! Instead, we have a government that actively hates the historic core population of America. Stolen elections have consequences. Having a government that hates and fears its own people is one of those consequences.
Indeed, we have Joe Biden who clearly hates a significant part, perhaps even a majority, of the American people. In this regard, he’s merely picking up where Barak Obama, who spoke of small-town Americans bitterly clinging to their guns and religion, and Hillary Clinton, of the notorious “basket of deplorables” comment, left off.
Lux Lucet 