9/11, Crosses, and Stars of David
The US-Israel connection goes deep.
I was walking around the neighborhood with my friend Joe this weekend. We passed by a 9/11 memorial nearby that’s set up on the grounds of a local Elk’s Lodge. It’s made from a piece of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center. The beam sticks vertically out of the ground and is surrounded by a pentagon (symbolizing the Pentagon that was also attacked). The beam has Christian crosses and Stars of David cut into the top end of it.
The memorial has intrigued me ever since I first saw it a few years ago. I’ve wondered about the significance of the symbols.
The crosses I get. But what about the stars? Are the Elks channeling the idea that Islam is a threat to Judeo-Christian America? That the Jews and the Christians are united in the fight against the Islamist threat? Or…is there something else?
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I know the Elks have, shall we say, a complicated history. It’s been basically a Christian-American nationalist organization for veterans for most of its existence — a social club where you had to profess your love of God and your hate of communism to be accepted. (They still have some unresolved issues with racial integration, among other things.) So the crosses weren’t that surprising. The Stars of David, though, threw me off. But on second thought, maybe they’re not so weird.
To me, the star’s presence on the monument is a sign of the deep cultural and religious integration of Israel and the United States. People wonder why the US has backed Israel so unconditionally, especially now when the US is an active accomplice to a genocide.