On August 10, 2024, Moshe Feiglin, founder and leader of the libertarian Zehut political party in Israel, delivered a video message to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamist regime in Iran.
Paul Cohen responded to Moshe with the following letter:
From: Paul Cohen
Date: Tue, Nov 5, 2024 at 9:06 AM
Subject: Letter to Khamenei
To: Moshe Feiglin
Moshe, you’ve written a letter to Khamenei, dictator of Iran.
It begins: “We are called upon to speak openly, to delve into the root causes and to reveal our true identity.”
You have spoken openly and revealed your true identity, but have you found the root causes?
Let’s see.
“Zechariah tells Cyrus, on behalf of God, that all his successes and conquests are from God, and their sole purpose is for Cyrus to say, ‘Jerusalem, you shall be built. And to the temple, your foundation shall be laid’… Without the Jews and without their temple, there was no Persian Empire to begin with.”
All of Cyrus’ successes and conquests are indeed from God, yet the same goes for all leaders and humans on earth, regarding failures and losses as well. Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon said this same thing after God restored that which He had removed:
“And at the end of days, I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up my eyes to Heaven, and my understanding returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored Him Who lives forever, Whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His rule is from generation to generation” (Dan 4:34).
“And all the people of the earth are counted as nothing; and He does according to His will in the army of Heaven, and among the people of the earth. And none can strike His hand, or say to Him, What are You doing? (Dan 4:35)
“At that time my reason returned to me. And the glory of my kingdom, my honor and brightness returned to me. And my advisers and my lords came for me, and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added to me” (Dan 4:36).
“Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and exalt and honor the King of heaven, all whose works are truth and His ways judgment. And those who walk in pride He is able to humble” (Dan 4:37).
Did not God also humble Israel through Nebuchadnezzar? Could you not just as well say of this ruler that God raised him up for the purpose of chastising Israel for its grievous sin? Should Iraq, in place of ancient Babylon, be yet pursuing punishment of Israel because of what God did through Babylon? Does the world revolve around Israel or does it revolve God’s righteousness and His many purposes fitting the times? Which are you worshipping, the God of Israel or Israel?
Khamenei, you are a religious and political leader, a wise man, a direct descendant of Muhammad. You know the truth. And the truth is, Khamenei, that all the principles in Islam are taken from Judaism: belief in one God, reward and punishment, salvation and the End of Times, the afterlife, and so on.”
Do the principles of Islam come from the authentic teachings of God recorded in the Tenach? While the Koran references names from the Bible presented with “spiritual” language and concepts, it’s not at all in agreement with the Word of God and doesn’t speak with the same Voice or principles.
What we have in the Koran isn’t a derivation or continuation and completion of God’s revelation. The Koran presents a blasphemous usurpation of God’s authority by Muhammad that supports Muhammad’s quest for world dominance through lies, deception, pillaging, rape and murder.
Is Islam your daughter?
How would Khamenei know the truth when he’s been taught lies as the foundation of his identity? And how can you be of the truth when you don’t recognize or openly acknowledge this?
“Christianity and Islam are, in fact, the rebellious daughters of Judaism who intended to replace it. So we have revelation number two. Not only does your national identity rely on us, but the roots of Your religion are also based on our religion.”
So yes, your religion is related to Islam, because both are man made. Your Judaism is a corrupted version of God’s ways and ordinances, a religion invented and taught by men who haven’t known Him as Abraham and Moses did. You opened the door for Muhammad’s blasphemous claims and creation of a perverse ideology.
You presume authority because of a physical relationship to the authentic fathers, and thereby do worse than Khamenei who claimed authority on what you had already perverted. You expect a Muslim to pay homage to your false god of Judaism while you deny the true God.
“Your father Abraham rejoiced that he should see My day, and he saw it and he was glad.” Then the Jews said to Him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM’ (John 8:56-58).
You and your spiritual fathers exhibit the same lust for power and control as Muhammad. You have revealed your true nature, Moshe, by acknowledging a devil called “Allah” as your kin.
“They [your fathers] answered and said to Him, Abraham is our father.’
“Jesus said to them, ‘If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a man who has spoken to you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the works of your father.’
“Then they said to Him, ‘We were not born of fornication; we have one Father—God.’
“Therefore Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would have loved Me, for I came forth and have come from God; nor have I come from Myself, but He sent Me.
“Why do you not understand what I say? Because you are unable to hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you desire to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has not stood in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar, and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me.’
‘Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?
He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear them, because you are not of God’” (John 8:39-47).
Christ, Messiah and God incarnate, is the very embodiment and manifestation of true Judaism. Yeshua HaMashiach is the Pesach Lamb of God Whose blood cleanses and delivers from all sin. He is the Manna from Heaven that consumed by faith raises us out of our graves of sin to serve God and fulfill the Law. He is the fulfillment of the Feasts of God.
“One of our bitter enemies in the ‘80s and ‘90s was Saddam Hussein, the ruler of Iraq. And in 1981 the Israeli Defense Forces destroyed his nuclear reactor. At that time, you and the Iraqi dictator were waging a bloody war… Have you thought, Khamenei, what would have happened if Israel had not destroyed the Iraqi reactor in 1981 and Iraq had nuclear weapons?…The truth is that our destruction of the Iraqi reactor saved you from nuclear annihilation.”
“Hence, in this historical assessment, we discovered three revelations. Number one, your imperialist national identity was established thanks to us. Number two, your religious identity also stems directly from our religion. Number three, you owe even your physical existence today to us and our action against Iraq.”
It’s true that Israel is here for the good of Iran (and all), but this is God’s doing, not yours.
“That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside Me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things” (Isa 45:6-7).
You’ve put yourself and Israel in the place of God. You’re entitled to no thanks or credit for the good He’s doing and you have earned and need the evil He’s sent for your correction.
You need to acknowledge and confess that God’s hand has been against you, personally, and collectively.
Israel has been under the judgment God foretold by His prophets that led to the diaspora. He has mercifully kept and miraculously restored the nation as promised through His prophets in the land given to Israel through Abraham. But this isn’t because of your righteousness. It’s in spite of your unrighteousness and self-righteousness, as stated from the beginning:
“Know, therefore, that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. Remember and do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD” (Deu 9:6-7).
“And despite all this, Khamenei, you decided to try to destroy us. Why? What motivates you? What makes you put so much effort into erasing us, the nation to which you owe your physical, national and religious existence?”
God has moved Khamenei’s heart to destroy you, just like He did with Pharaoh. The one who needs to be reconciled to the truth here is you, Moshe, not the evil agent God has raised up to correct you and Israel. It’s your God Whom you oppose that opposes you. Now we’re talking real “root causes” and “true identities.”
You go on to condemn Islam as a coercive religion while claiming the opposite for the Judaism you espouse:
“You want to realize Shia Islamic salvation in Muhammad’s way, that is to impose your belief on the whole world by force. You believe that God must be imposed on man. Man has no choice… All means in your hands, you use to forcibly subjugate man to God. This is your way, while we believe in the completely opposite way… We believe that the secret of salvation is choice, the choice of a free man without coercion, without bondage, and without terror. Only when a free man can choose his God, wishing to connect to the source of life and morality, to the source of goodness and blessing, humanity will reach its complete salvation.”
You think yours isn’t a coercive religion? Think again. Your Judaism and Islam both act as gatekeepers to God while demanding worship of a god made in your own images. False Judaism and Islam exclude any of their own people who choose to walk with the true God and try to force them to abandon Him, just as you told me to do on April 30 in Petah Tikvah.
“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in” (Mat 23:13).
Your religion is no different than Islam because both depend on man’s virtue and works for salvation according to your own edicts, not God’s. But you’re more in the wrong than Khamenei because Khamenei isn’t of His chosen people that forsook Him, the Fountain of Living Water.
“O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake You shall be put to shame; those who turn away from You shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water” (Jer 17:13).
You need to be ashamed trying to shame the one whose treachery doesn’t approach your own.
But that can’t happen while you exult in your self-righteousness, so deeply mistaken about mankind choosing God:
“God looked down from Heaven on the sons of mankind to see if any was discerning, who was seeking God. Every one has turned away; they have altogether become filthy; not one is doing good, no, not even one” (Psa 53:2-3).
Abraham was a righteous man, but that was because God had chosen him and not the other way around as taught in your Jewish fables. Abraham fell short of the glory of God as with all men. That’s the reason for the sacrifices of the Feast Days, to atone for our deadly sins from which we cannot free ourselves or choose our way out of. But those sacrifices ended with the real and permanent solution provided by the blood of Messiah.
Abraham’s unbelief planted the seed of Islam. Are you taking credit for this too, Moshe? Sarah, seeing that she and Abraham weren’t producing an heir, suggested that Abraham take her Egyptian maid as a concubine. Abraham hearkened to Sarah and the result was the birth of Ishmael, father of the Arabs and Muhammad.
Ishmael mocked Isaac, being envious and threatened by Isaac’s presence as Abraham’s heir. The two couldn’t co-exist, and God sent Ishmael away with his own promise of inheritance.
So we have Muhammad of the lineage of Ishmael coming to steal the promise of God to Abraham through Isaac, as Muhammad construed that promise in his carnal, fallen nature.
Abraham, though with weakness in his flesh, had the gift of faith and walked with God. He recognized his weakness and gave the glory to God, but you’re walking in your own strength and virtue which is why you take credit for what is God’s.
“Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.’ “Only in the LORD, it shall be said of Me, are righteousness and strength; to Him shall come and be ashamed all who were incensed against Him. In the LORD all the offspring of Israel shall be justified and shall glory.” (Isa 45:22-25)
You’re incensed against the One to Whom every knee will bow, Yeshua HaMashiach, YHWH in the flesh. You openly demonstrated that at our meeting.
For now, you boast:
“We return to our land after 2000 years to proclaim the salvation of the end times to the whole world, a salvation that believes in man and in free man’s choice of his God, because God created man in His image.”
How can there be salvation to the whole world by man’s choice (power)? Since when have men chosen God leading to salvation, with peace and good will prevailing on earth? Where and when has this happened with Israel or any other people? And how will this happen now, with Israel hopelessly divided within itself as is the rest of the world? By man’s free choice?
Has there ever been a more soundly debunked fantasy about humanity?
“In the name of the God of Israel, we will fight for truth, justice, and freedom.”
No you won’t fight for truth, justice, and freedom because you don’t do so at present. You’re doing your own thing in your own name. You don’t speak for all of Israel, either, because not all Israel is like you or with you. I am of Israel, for example, and you fight against me.
Your delusion takes you over a cliff:
“And when we win, we will complete the true vision of our prophets, like in the time of Cyrus, we will build the palace of God, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, our capital. We will light the menorah, and we will bring freedom, life, and peace to the entire world.”
Cyrus was inspired by God to have the Temple built in Jerusalem. That was by the Word of God and His mandate. You lack these things, Moshe. God hasn’t asked for and doesn’t want a temple built in your high places. He already has His Temple in and through Messiah.
Resisting your presumptuousness are multitudes of Muslims who will rise up in a myriad of ways to oppose your building project. But closer to home and even more problematic for you are the Israeli Jews who reject your project. And they’ll prevail because God isn’t with you and your substitutionary Judaism.
Paul Benjamin Cohen
Rapid City, SD USA