“A wise man attacks the city of the mighty
and pulls down the stronghold in which they trust.”

Proverbs 21:22

As the U.S. dollar gets ready to free-fall into oblivion, President Obama has presided over a radical remolding of the American economy during which the reality of the U.S. Government seizing corporations seems imminent. One of the reasons that the U.S. quarantined Castro’s Cuba after the Cuban Revolution was because Cuba nationalized assets belonging to U.S. citizens. Nevertheless, we may see the “takings” clause of the 5th Amendment shredded along with many of our other dearly purchased Constitutional rights.

Now we have seen men like Chas. Freeman, Jr. that shill for China and attack Israel nominated for important intelligence posts. Almost every cabinet level office that has been filled is staffed by henchmen of the gun-control lobby and we should keep our eyes on Van Jones, a former street agitator known for harassing the police in the San Francisco Bay Area. The group called ColorOfChange, formerly affiliated with Van Jones, has been busy calling for boycotts of Glen Beck because Beck referred to President Obama as a racist!

Jones himself stated that when he was jailed in San Francisco for participating in a protest against police brutality:

“I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’ I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary. I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th. By August, I was a communist.”

In March, 2009, a number of concerned Americans, including the San Francisco Police Officer’s Association, began calling attention to the evidence implicating Obama cronies Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn in the 1970 murder of a San Francisco police officer. In light of what has transpired since inauguration day, it is worth taking another look at what some of us already knew about Obama during the “mainstream” campaign while the media turned a blind eye:

During the campaign, Obama resigned membership in his racist anti-American Chicagoland church (to which he belonged for over twenty years). Obama had previously called for unity and an end to the politics of division while including his anti-American pastor on his campaign committee.

There were efforts to distance himself from a long time friend, a Catholic priest for whom Obama had gone to bat in the U.S. Senate and the Illinois legislature. Sen. Obama won hundreds of thousands of taxpayer funding in order to fuel Father Pfleger’s ministry in Chicago. Father Pfleger accepted such largesse even while proclaiming that America is the worst sin in God’s eyes.

“In addition to giving $20,000 of his own money to Jeremiah Wright, as a state senator Obama directed $225,000 of the Illinois taxpayers’ money for programs run by Father Pfleger. In the U.S. Senate, Obama earmarked $100,000 in federal tax money for Father Pfleger’s work. Giving someone more than 300 grand is not just some tenuous, coincidental association.”

Barack Obama had a long record of associating with anti-American radicals including William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn who were local activists in Hyde Park (the stronghold in Chicago’s South Side where the University of Chicago is located and one of the Midwest’s strongest left-wing bastions.

Dohrn and Ayers are better known nationally as two of the most notorious — and unrepentant — figures from the violent fringe of the 1960s anti-war movement, according to Ben Smith at www.politico.com.

Obama was at Bill Ayers’ home when Alice Palmer stepped down from running for office and identified Obama as her successor in the race. The visit by Obama to their home — part of a campaign courtship — reflects more extensive interaction than has been previously reported, according to Smith.

Ayers and Dohrn were violent bombers and members of the violent SDS Weatherman faction that were wanted by the federal government for planning to kill members of the U.S. Armed Forces and other crimes.

“Politicians of an earlier generation had their own relationships with figures now far to their left. Hillary Rodham Clinton, for instance, interned at a radical San Francisco law firm while in law school.

Prof. Dohrn and Dr. Ayers disappeared in 1970, after a bomb — designed to kill army officers in New Jersey — accidentally destroyed a Greenwich Village townhouse, and turned themselves into authorities in 1980. Ayers was never prosecuted for his involvement with the 25 bombings the Weather Underground claimed; charges were dropped because of improper FBI surveillance. Dohrn received a relatively light sentence for a terrorist when she refused to testify about what she knew.

Both have written and spoken at length about their pasts, and today he is an advocate for progressive education and a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago; she’s an associate professor of law at Northwestern University.

But — unlike some other fringe figures of the era — they’re also flatly unrepentant about the bombings they committed in the name of ending the war, defending them on the grounds that they killed no one, except, accidentally, their own members. But is it true to claim that the two only killed other radicals when the bombs (constructed to use against members of the U.S. Armed Forces) blew up by accident:

“The Society of Former Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation authored a 1979 pamphlet on the WUO that reported, ‘On October 18, 1974, Larry Grathwohl, a former member of the WUO, testified before a US Senate Subcommittee that Bill Ayers, a WUO leader, had told him that Bernardine Dohrn, another WUO leader, had to plan, develop and carry out the bombing of the police station in San Francisco. Ayers told Grathwohl the bomb was placed on the window ledge and he described the bomb that was used to the extent of saying what kind of shrapnel was used in it.’

Ayers was never convicted because of a legal technicality- the FBI surveilled and/or wiretapped Ayers illegally. However, Dohrn, who is married to Ayers, was jailed for less than a year for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating as to other Weather Underground members’ robbery of a Brinks truck, in which a guard and two New York State Troopers were killed.

“I don’t regret setting bombs; I feel we didn’t do enough,” Ayers told the New York Times in 2001.”

Paradoxically, like many leftists that would justify violence in order to accomplish socialist political objectives, Sen. Obama has a soft spot in his heart for gun control. Even while he was telling rural voters during the campaign that he believed the Second Amendment protected individual rights, the Senator from Illinois reassured the liberal elite that he considered such rhetoric to be worthy of only derision and ridicule- window dressing for illiterate masses that cling to religion and guns.. See www.politico.com.

Sen. Obama’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ, is not a mainstream church but one that is linked to “liberation theology“. Sen. Obama indicated that his former pastor, Rev. Wright, won Obama to “Christianity” and has been a mentor and spiritual guide to the Senator. The theology of the Reverend is a racist stew of Liberation Theology and black separatism. Liberation Theology is a radical Marxist-Leninist reinterpretation of the Bible that has taken root in many different denominations.

Sen. Obama’s pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr, not only has a militant past but travels with Louis Farrakhan, an Anti-Semite that believes whites, the U.S. and Zionist Jews are the axis of evil. Rev. Wright also has recently supported Hamas on his church webpages; Hamas is a recognized terrorist organization that has killed many innocent Israelis and Americans.

The United Church of Christ, Rev. Wright’s denomination, is being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service for a speech Obama delivered at a church conference in June in Hartford, Conn. The Wall Street Journal suggested that the South Side church may be violating its tax-exempt status by endorsing a candidate.

The New York Times presented a picture of Rev. Wright, a man that uses obscenities to get his points across, as vehemently opposed to America’s role in the world and Wright has made comments that seem to indicate we got what we had coming on September 11th.

The following excerpts from an article by By Ed Lasky show how Obama may pose a threat to Israeli and American security:

Senator Barack Obama has become the rarest of politicians: a man who has seemingly come out of nowhere to ascend to the top rank of Democratic Presidential candidates.

Obama’s spiritual mentor

Given the anti-Semitism that is sadly so often associated with other leaders and groups that have emphasized black separatism and empowerment (think Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton) perhaps some qualms might be warranted, particularly given some of the actions and statements of the Church’s minister.

Pastor Wright is a believer in “liberation theology,” which makes the liberation of the oppressed a paramount virtue. The language of liberation all too often veers off into anti-Jewish rants. For example, one of the founders of the movement, Gustavo Gutierrez, has stated that the infidelities of the Jewish people made the Old Covenant [between the Jews and God] invalid.” Pastor Wright is also a supporter of Louis Farrakhan, and in 1984 traveled with him to visit Col. Muammar al-Gadaffi, an archenemy of Israel’s and America and a firm supporter of terror groups.

But what were his views before he ran for and was elected to the Presidency?

One other aspect of Obama’s support that was cause for some discomfort is the fact that he had the seal of approval from Jimmy Carter and billionaire George Soros-both influential and powerful people who take an unseemly glee in trying to undermine the American-Israel alliance. Soros has been funding powerful 527 groups, donating to candidates and others-such as Wes Clark-who are severe critics of Israel…

Furthermore, Obama stated that he supported a resumption of aid to the Palestinian government… the international community has laid down requirements for such aid to continue: not only must the Palestinians renounce terrorism, but they also must stop it…

Note: President Obama has now pledged millions of dollars in aid to Hamas, even though Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Government.

Similarly, his use of the discredited term “cycle of violence” Obama displayed an approach that equates Palestinian terror attacks with Israeli defense actions. If Obama were true to his rhetoric of peace and the need to come together, why didn’t he speak out about Palestinian textbooks that teach children to hate and that celebrate martyrdom? (Even Hillary Clinton has done so).

No wonder Barack Obama was and is so popular among denizens of Hollywood…

The fact is that Barack Obama had a record on which he never had to run because the press was virtually silent as to serious questions raised by his record:

The Wall Street Journal provided the following in relation to how Obama came to hold office in Illinois:

In real life, it did not matter what Mr. Obama said on the stump or whether South Side voters were impressed. What mattered was that, beginning on Jan. 2, 1996, his campaigners began challenging thousands of petition signatures the other candidates in the race had submitted in order to appear on the ballot. Thus would Mr. Obama win his state Senate seat, months before a single vote was cast.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Mr. Obama’s petition challengers reported to him nightly on their progress as they disqualified his opponents’ signatures on various technical grounds – all legitimate from the perspective of law. One local newspaper, Chicago Weekend, reported that “[s]ome of the problems include printing registered voters name [sic] instead of writing, a female voter got married after she registered to vote and signed her maiden name, registered voters signed the petitions but don’t live in the 13th district.”

One of the candidates would speculate that his signature-gatherers, working at a per-signature pay rate, may have cheated him by signing many of the petitions themselves, making them easy to disqualify.

In the end, Mr. Obama disqualified all four opponents – including the incumbent state senator, Alice Palmer, and three minor candidates. Ms. Palmer, a former ally of Mr. Obama, had gathered 1,580 signatures, more than twice the 757 required to appear on the ballot. A minor, perennial candidate had gathered 1,899 signatures, suggesting the Obama team invested much time working even against him.

The act of throwing an incumbent off the ballot in such a fashion does not fit neatly into the narrative of a public-spirited reformer who seeks to make people less cynical about politics.

Commitment to old-style politics, exemplified by repeated endorsements of Chicago’s machine politicians, characterizes much of the President’s political career:

In the 2006 election, reformers from both parties attempted to end the corruption in Chicago’s Cook County government. They probably would have succeeded, too, had Mr. Obama taken their side. Liberals and conservatives came together and nearly ousted Cook County Board President John Stroger, the machine boss whom court papers credibly accuse of illegally using the county payroll to maintain his own standing army of political cronies, contributors and campaigners.

The since-deceased Stroger’s self-serving mismanagement of county government is still the subject of federal investigations and arbitration claims. Stroger was known for trying repeatedly to raise taxes to fund his political machine, even as basic government services were neglected in favor of high-paying county jobs for his political soldiers.

When liberals and conservatives worked together to clean up Cook County’s government, they were displaying precisely the postpartisan interest in the common good that Mr. Obama extols today. And Mr. Obama, by working against them, helped keep Chicago politics dirty. He refused to endorse the progressive reformer, Forrest Claypool, who came within seven points of defeating Stroger in the primary.

After the primary, when Stroger’s son Todd replaced him on the ballot under controversial circumstances, a good-government Republican named Tony Peraica attracted the same kind of bipartisan support from reformers in the November election. But Mr. Obama endorsed the young heir to the machine, calling him – to the absolute horror of Chicago liberals – a “good, progressive Democrat.”

Mayor Richard M. Daley – who would receive Mr. Obama’s endorsement in 2007 shortly after several of his top aides and appointees had received prison sentences for their corrupt operation of Chicago’s city government – was invested in the Stroger machine’s survival. So was every alderman and county commissioner who uses the county payroll to support political hangers-on. So was Mr. Obama’s friend and donor, Tony Rezko, who is now in federal prison awaiting sentencing after being convicted in June of 16 felony corruption charges. Rezko had served as John Stroger’s finance chairman and raised $150,000 for him (Stroger put Rezko’s wife on the county payroll).

See “Obama Played by Chicago Rules” by DAVID FREDDOSO; August 20, 2008; Page A19. Mr. Freddoso is the author of the just-published “The Case Against Barack Obama” (Regnery).

The other big Obama story that some segments of the media have done a fairly job at following:

Senator Barack Obama admitted that he had made repeated lapses of judgment in dealing with an indicted Chicago real estate developer, Antoin Rezko, and acknowledged that Mr. Rezko had raised more money for his political campaigns than he had previously disclosed.

The aspect of the Rezko story that has not been fully reported has to do with Obama’s possible Syrian ties to Rezko and at least one Rezko affiliate who contributed to Obama’s campaigns. The fact that Rezko and at least one of his associates were from Syria was not in and of itself sinister but we should have been informed about the possibility of a “Syrian connection” because there is a history of Democrats allowing themselves to be used by foreign powers in return for campaign contributions. According to Human Events:

Companion Security was headed by a former Chicago policeman with a troubled history, Daniel T. Frawley, in partnership with Mr. Rezko and in association with Daniel Mahru, the lawyer for the original contract and Mr. Rezko’s former business partner. In April 2006, Mr. Frawley entered negotiations with Governor Rod Blagojevich’s staff to lease a military facility in Illinois to be a training camp. In August 2006, Mr. Frawley started negotiations with Mr. Obama’s U.S. Senate staff to complete the contract.

The discussions with Mr. Obama’s staff continued over many months, including e-mails and conferences with an Obama staffer, Seamus Ahern. Questions raised by this contact go to the issue of whether or not Mr. Obama ever favored Mr. Rezko’s commercial ties. Mr. Obama has said often that he performed no favors for Mr. Rezko.

“Instruct the Israelites to bring you clear oil of beaten olives for lighting, to cause the lamp TO BURN ALWAYS. Aaron and his sons shall set them up in the Tent of Meeting, outside the curtain which is before the Ark of the Pact, to burn from evening to morning before the LORD. It shall be a due from the Israelites FOR ALL TIME, throughout the ages.”

[Exodus (Shemot) 27. 20 - 21 Tanakh, Torah]

The following account of the Maccabean battles is primarily from the “Battles of the Battle”, by Chaim Herzog and Mordechai Gichon. The authors state that the purpose of the book is “to narrate the military history of the Bible in terms of modern military concepts and accepted terminology.” In the present essay we will suggest some examples as to how the Maccabean battles speak to principles of warfare over the centuries with special emphasis on the subject of how volunteer militia units stack up against professional armies.

There are issues of technology, intelligence and tactics but morale is also important. When a people suddenly confronts a foreign occupation force, what are the sources for building the quality of morale that it takes to face a determined and well-trained professional foe?

Herzog, who authored the chapters related to Maccabees, fought in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War as an officer in the battles for Latrun. He performed intelligence functions during World War II. From 1948 through 1962, Herzog was head of the IDF Military Intelligence Branch. He served as head of the Israeli Defense Forces again from 1959 to 1962 and retired with the rank of Major-General.

When the Revolt commenced in 167 BC, it had been four hundred years since any organized Jewish force had taken up arms. Bible readers will recall that when Israel became apostate by worshipping foreign “gods”, she was divided. The people of Yahweh were divided into two kingdoms- the Northern and Southern kingdoms- and then were separately taken into captivity. Cyrus, the Emperor of the Persians, a pluralistic society, sent the captive Israelites back to rebuild Jersusalem.

By the time of the Maccabean revolt, many centuries after Nehemia and Ezra had restored the Temple in Jerusalem, Alexander and his army had swept across Persia and Mesopotamia wielding Hellenistic culture.

The importance of Israel’s confrontation with Greek culture and philosophy in understanding the history of Israel cannot be overestimated. The Hellenistic mores, world view and policy objectives considerably outlasted Alexander’s lifetime.

Alexander divided his legendary empire among four generals. The Egyptian-based Ptolemies were rivals of the Seleucid Empire, based in Syria. Jerusalem and Judea were under the jurisdiction of the Ptolemies (a dynasty also descending from one of Alexander’s four successors). When Antiochus III wrested Palestine from the Ptolemies, he would have had a Jewish problem on his hands but followed a policy similar to the Romans who came later; i.e., a policy of allowing the Jews limited autonomy and religious tolerance.

Antiochus III reigned in a time when the power of Rome had not risen to the point where the Judeans constituted a threat to the Seleucids. When Antiochus IV came to power in 175 BC, Syria was faced with global threats to its trade routes running through Palestine; with the Ptolemies threatening in the south, and aggressive Romans, Parthians and Persians pressuring Syria’s other borders, Antiochus determined to enforce cultural uniformity.

The Seleucid authorities took over the priesthood and Hellenized the Temple worship in Jerusalem and a split occurred between Jews who compromised with the Greek culture and anti-Hellenist traditionalists, eschewing foreign culture and religion. The split became an open revolt at a time when the Syrian forces(Seleucid army troops) were retreating from a failed siege in Egypt (under impending threat of Roman intervention). The irate Antiochus Epiphanes ordered strong measures in Jerusalem. Syrian troops massacred the Jewish population there.

What followed came to be known by Jesus and present day Bible teachers as “the Abomination of Desolation”. The Temple of Solomon was relegated to the cult of Zeus and desecrated by sacrifices of swine. This set the stage for the appearance of an amazing breed of Jewish warriors that had not been seen since the ancient days of Israel’s Judges in before the advent of the Kingdom of Israel.

The Antiochus administration dispatched an officer named Apelles to the rural village of Modiin in order to suppress any Judaistic practices in the countryside. The means of ensuring that submission to Hellenistic culture was without reservation on the part of the Jewish underclass was to set up an altar and order Mattathias, the local Jewish priest, to sacrifice and eat the swine flesh. Mattathias refused.

When a more compliant fellow stepped forward, Mattathias went berserk with righteous indignation (like Samson or Jesus when he drove out the money-changers in order to cleanse the Temple from corruption, killing the traitor and Appelles. Mattathias and a handful of farmers took to the hills outside present-day Ramallah. The Judean terrain offered a mountain stronghold for the guerrilla force that was forming even as events propelled them onward.

The Maccabees organized a nationwide intelligence apparatus, refrained at first from aggressive operations and emphasized principles that went beyond mere cultural indoctrination. I imagine that there was school of sorts like Samuel’s School of the Prophets, wherein champions of the faith (see Hebrews 11 and the Books of Samuel) were studied along with Torah study (Five Books of the Law).

In Samuel’s time, the Philistines denied oppressed Israelites the fundamental right to sharpen their own farming implements; i.e., the Philistine instituted “gun-control” in the form of restrictions on edged weaponry. It is not easy to educate a people that have lived under oppression for so long that they have lost their identity as warriors and feel nothing but shame and conflict when law-givers like Moses or Samuel try to tell them, “This is who you are; your God destined you to be a warrior. Be strong and of good courage!”

In the beginning, the Maccabees may have been less than fifty able-bodied fighters out of a band of two hundred Jews that took to the Judean hills. Mattathias died in the first year of the revolt but designated Judas Maccabeus to lead Israel’s forces.

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The Jewish farmers possessed weapons that were little more than slings and farming implements against a well-equipped, well-trained modern army by any standards- veteran Syrian soldiers reputed for ferocious cavalry charges, fierce infantry troops, chariots, elephants and well trained artillery engineers with machinery for launching large boulders- all the usual instruments and engines of classical warfare.

But the Seleucid training was geared towards conventional fighting. Sword, javelin, spear and arrow in the hands of large numbers of mercenaries soon gave way to a few committed fighters willing to hit their enemy, grab some weapons and then prepare to strike again. A few men operating with the advantage of surprise tied up many soldiers waiting to react defensively. The Jewish guerillas also had support from local populations and easily melted into the local landscape.

The rebels gradually assembled an arsenal of modern weapons- swords, bows, spears, maybe even some ballistas for throwing rocks and battering rams (if they weren’t too heavy to carry them into the hills after an attack). The Syrian troops were organized into tactical phalanx elements starting with the syntagma of 250 men, like a modern company. The conventional tactics are familiar to any student of shock troop warfare (evolved from the Grecian hoplite units) in which two armies press each other in a head on clash while skirmishers and cavalry protect the flanks.

The disadvantage of this kind of warfare against mountain fighters soon became apparent when Judas the Maccabee, Mattathias’ middle son, attacked Appolonius, who was advancing from Samaria to Jerusalem with 2,000 Syrian troops.

The Syrians entered a narrow passageway. Judas divided his fighters into four units that maneuvered Appolonius into a trap. Judas attacked two separate chiliarchiae of approximately 1,000 Syrian troops each from east and west. A chiliarchiae was being cut to ribbons in the defile while the other units kept pressing forward without knowing that they were about to be surprised from the rear. Appolonius, in the second chiliarchiae rode forward took to see what was occurring in front and took fire from both hillsides, thus, spilling out his life on that battlefield. These events left the entire Seleucid force in a state of utter destruction four miles north-east of Gophna. The Maccabees 600 fighters added more weapons to their considerable arsenal.

The Syrian General Seron was determined to avenge the Maccabean exploit that occurred at Nahal el-Haramiah. Gen. Seron stayed near the coast and turned inland near Jaffa past the present day airport of Lod. According to 1 Maccabees 3:16, the General used a secondary route to Jerusalem tht led through the same pass used by general Allenby when the British 90th Division advanced on Turkish held Jerusalem in 1917.

Any reader that reviews Biblical history along with the accounts of modern day warfare in Palestine, especially Israeli military history since 1948, cannot help but see many events that are proof that Yahweh still has his hand on Israel. One geographical location, such as General Seron’s route through Beth-Horon, can invite repeated conflicts over the centuries. The same route was chosen by Israeli forces in 1967 in order to take the Old City of Jerusalem.

The Battle of Beth- Horon comprised 4,000 troops (four chiliarchia) against 1,000 Jewish troops. Judas reminded his men that they were fighting for their homes, families and heritage- their heritage in Y-hw-h G-d (Hebrew mandates that the name of God (transliterated Jehovah in Anglo-Saxon texts) is unable to be pronounced; the exact pronunciation is consequently unknown. General Seron was the target of choice as he rode through the narrow passage at Beth-Horon. Seron made sure not to bunch his troops and thereby considerably diminished the possibility of another ambush.

As the Syrians worked their way up the hillsides toward Beth-Horon, perhaps a little more than a day’s march (fifteen miles by road from Jerusalem), Judas led the charge. He carried Appolonius’ sword and continued to do so from that time onward. Jewish militia men lay hidden on each side of the road to Jerusalem. They came out of the rocks with slings and bows and then closed in with swords chasing the surprised Syrians back toward the plains below.

Judah’s risky strategy of dividing his 1,000 men into four separate units destroyed the enemy’s plan to link up with the Syrian garrison in Jerusalem and to subdue the whole country from that command center.

Such lessons were similar to the experience of Americans later in history. Battlefields like New Orleans, where frontiersmen, pirates and Indians vanquished the most powerful army of the time, the veteran British regulars who had bested Napoleon in Europe and India. The Americans at the Battle of New Orleans had the long rifle, giving them a greater edge in technology, at least in terms of accurate firepower.

Back in the command centers of Antiochus, the news of Seron’s defeat caused the leaders to quickly change their plans by reassigning forces to use any and all means to search out and destroy the remnant of Judea and allot the land to aliens, a familiar experience for Israel and other conquered peoples dating back at least to the Assyrian occupation of the Northern Kingdom in 740 BC.

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Thus, the stakes were high when three Syrian Generals bivouacked at Emmaus (present-day Imwas near Latrun). According to 1 Maccabee there were 40,000 Syrian infantry troops and 7,000 cavalry but 2 Maccabee estimates that the Syrian strength was higher. Judas was busy recruiting a force that mustered out at 6,000. He organized them as battalions (1,000 strong), companies (of 100 men), platoons of 50 and 10 man units. This is similar to the way modern armies are organized, according to Herzog. Judas somehow divided these units into four groups (1500 each), three of which were commanded by his three brothers.

Judas invoked the glorious heritage of Israel and the injunctions of the Law (Torah). As things shaped up, the two opposing camps were visible to each other.

The Syrian General Gorgias led his forces into the hills for a night attack (this was evidently a first for the conventionally minded shock-troops). The Israelis anticipated the night attack. When the Syrians launched their attack, the Maccabean camp was empty but Syrian scouts observed the Jewish rearguard in retreat and gave chase.

These actions say a great deal about the importance of intelligence, usually on the part of recon scouts who are trained to move under cover and report what they see with their eyes. We can deduce such a premise because of the fact that the Maccabean retreat was an elaborate deception intended to lure Gorgias into another defile. There Judas attacked the Syrian troops with units stationed in the defile during the night.

The Syrians anticipated Judas’ next move which was to attack the Seleucid-Syrian camp at dawn. The Seleucid forces were arrayed for battle, the element of surprise was lost. Judas attacked the western flank of the enemy phalanx, penetrated the phalanx and his men engaged the shock-troops in hand to hand combat. Another group of 1,500 Israelis attacked the remaining Syrians who were languishing complacently in the camp. Total confusion overtook the Syrians. The phalanx formation disintegrated early in the fighting, the troops guarding the baggage in the base camp were fleeing to the coast, as elephants, horses, camp followers, slave traders and soldiers screamed, stampeded and bled in the dust.

Gorgias turned to face the valley; the sight of the burning base camp panicked Gorgias’ forces and the Jewish troops went after them in hot pursuit. The recruiting got easier for Judas who now controlled the whole country with the exception of Jerusalem. The Jewish militia was now at 10,000 strong and, in addition to the great value of their other plunder, the amount of weaponry they seized put Judas’ Jewish militia volunteers in a strong position to lay siege to Jerusalem.

Lysias, a noteable within Antiochus Epiphanes’ own family, undertook to punish Judas’ audacity. The plan was to enter Jerusalem, avoid the mountains completely and operate from a secure fortress in Jerusalem called Acra. He traveled through Idumea (Biblical Edom), where the population was not friendly toward the Jews.

The Seleucid forces were at about 20,000 strong and, thus, outnumbered Judas’s men by about two to one. Again Judas picked the battle terrain, this time in an area that was carved up by wadis, the term for ravines and gully washes in that part of the world. And once again the Judean forces were divided into four groups but this time Judas had no illusions as to the possibility of splitting the enemy’s forces.

Judas’ guerilla forces disengorged from their hiding place in a ravine just as the Seleucids emerged from another defile. Jewish militia that Judas had held in reserve sealed the area along a half mile front as their brothers surprised their enemies from both sides. Imagine the dismay, humiliation and abject terror of that proud army and the carnage to which they were subjected! The Syrians lost approximately 5,000 men, mostly mercenaries of poor quality and Lysias performed a tactical retreat.

The Battle of Beth-Zur was a psychological and strategic victory for the rebels. Judas’ next objective was to rededicate the Temple. The Gentile people began a pogrom against the Jewish communities all over Syria. At the same time, Judas was entering Jerusalem, removing the offensive symbols of paganism from the temple and consecrating the restored Temple after rebuilding the altar. The Acra faced the Temple Mount.

The Maccabees contained the Syrian garrison within the walls of that mighty fortress as Judah evaluated the situation that was developing into a desperate holocaust for the Jewish communities outside of Jerusalem. Fortified Jewish towns were under siege and an expedition of Israeli special forces had to go to their rescue.

Now Judas’ ability to govern was on display, not only to the Seleucids but before Rome and all the world. Could Judas rescue his besieged brothers and sisters and still hold Jerusalem?

Dathema, sixty miles from present day Amman, Jordan, was the center of Jewish resistance. The enemy already had men scaling the walls of the fortified Jewish city. Judas successfully attacked the besieging forces from the rear, defeated a counter-attack and rescued his besieged countrymen in Trans-Jordan. He punished the hostile Idumeans (for helping the enemy)and burned the harbor and shipping at Jaffa in reprisal for the drowning of a Jewish community that had resided there.

The fortress of Acra now confronted Judas as his next big challenge. Judas’ forces possessed siege engines and in 162 BC they invested the citadel. This led to a protracted siege and Lysias returned with thirty war elephants and 30,000 troops, not including cavalry and chariot units. Judas’ militia had never faced elephants. War elephants bore turrets containing a driver and four fighters. The Maccabees were now fighting defensively and the psychological impact of the elephants cannot be overestimated.

Eleazer, Judas’ younger brother, made a daring foray to demonstrate that the elephants were vulnerable. He fought through the forces that protected the immense battle pachyderm platforms, gored an elephant’s underbelly and was crushed when the beast fell dead on top of him.

This battle of Beth-zechariah demonstrates the principle that civilian reserve militia cannot prevail in so-called set-piece operations against the inherent strength of trained regulars. The time and place need to be selected by the resistance leader with tactics that are appropriate to guerrilla warfare.

As a consequence of fighting the enemy on enemy terms, Jerusalem lay unprotected before Lysias. The besieged population of Jerusalem was low on food when Lysias was called away due to political conflicts within the royal family. Judah and Lysias negotiated terms guaranteeing religious freedom. Judas resolved, nevertheless, to fight on for total independence. The Seleucids themselves returned to slaughtering Jews, as soon as Lycias (regent over the Seleucid Empire) defeated Philip (Antiochus’ son). The guerrilla fighting was renewed in earnest.

Judas defeated the Seleucids at Nicanor (161 BC) and negotiated a treaty of alliance with Rome, thereby establishing Judea as an independent state recognized by Rome itself.

The new state of affairs set the Seleucid’s in opposition to Judean independence more firmly than ever before. The terms of the previous cease-fire granting religious freedom had lulled the Jews into a sense of false security. Therefore Judas was able to raise less than 3,000 “picked” militia members to fight 20,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry.

The Jewish volunteers melted away when the battle was joined, leaving Judas to fight on with 800 men against overwhelming forces arrayed against him. Judah raised the morale of his men and fought on valiantly, turning the tide several times before he finally fell in battle. The combination of bravery, moral force and outright inspirational leadership achieved victories that still have political and military ramifications to this day.

The events related by Herzog (merely summarized herein) and 1st and 2nd Macc, welded together the national character of the Jewish people like few other events in the history of that unique people. Had it not been for the Maccabean revolt, many of the events that characterize the New Testament Biblical narrative would be indecipherable.

In the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life there is reference to the Feast of Dedication which was celebrated in memorial to the restoration and consecration of the temple when the Maccabees entered Jerusalem. This is the holiday that we now call Chanukkah.

The following is an explanation of the spiritual significance of Chanukkah from a Messianic Jewish teacher:

The word “Chanukkah” in Hebrew literally means “dedication” in memory of the rededication of the Temple in 165 BC by Judas Maccabeus, after it had been polluted by Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king. In 176 BC Antiochus tried to force the Jews to give up their faith and to adopt Greek customs. He persecuted the Jews who refused to do this.

Antiochus Epiphanes converted the Temple of the Lord to the worship of Zeus, and placed an image of Zeus the dominant Greek god (the abomination of desolation) in the Holy Place. He looted the Temple and ordered all Jews to bow down to the idols placed there. Then, he brought in a sow, and placed it on the Holy Altar in desecration of Almighty God’s Holiness. He brought waste and destruction - desecrated the vessels of the LORD in debauchery and drunkenness and put out the “Ner Tomid” ("Perpetual Light").

The Hasmoneans, the Maccabee family, led the Jews in a revolt. After several years of fighting, Judah and his men drove the Syrians out. On the 25th of Kislev (exactly 3 years after the defilement of the Sanctuary) in the year 165 BC they made their entrance into the Temple and rededicated it to the service of the Great God of Heaven.

In the Temple, the priests left a light burning in obedience to the command of the Holy One, but when they prepared to rekindle this light after the victory, they found that there was only enough oil to last one day.

This was a tragic discovery to the Jewish people for the Almighty’s command could not then be carried out. Search was made for the oil for this Lamp. The oil must be pure and prepared under the care of the high priest and sealed with his seal. No pure oil could be found nor could any be prepared before 8 days (7 days set apart to the Lord; the 8th day it became holy to the LORD). The small jug of oil bearing the seal of the high priest might suffice for only one day, but according to the Jewish people’s tradition the supernatural occurred, the oil lasted for the full eight days!

Thus, we see that military events put the hearts of a people on display before the world and before powers and principalities in heavenly places. Judas was a “hammer” (his name literally means “Hammer of God” in Hebrew- but correct me on this if I am wrong, Hebrew scholars), forging the will and the character of a nation. See also Charles Martel:

Effective intelligence networks along with flexibility of thought and the ability to shift tactics rapidly were important.

Taking the initiative decisively in order to decide the timing and terrain of the battle was just as important. Leadership was always an important element in the equation, of course. The leadership in Judas Maccabeus’ case conformed to Scriptural precedents for leadership toward which Judas steadfastly directed his followers. The account herein raises some important issues; further discussion should be forthcoming.

“A wise man scales the city of the mighty, and casts down the strength of the confidence thereof.” Proverbs 21:22