Benedictus Qui Venit in Nomini Domini, Hosanna in Excelsis, part twelve

Several recent articles (Benedictus Qui Venit in Nomine Domini, Hosanna in Excelsis, part ten, Benedictus Qui Venit in Nomine Domini, part eleven, and King Donald John Nabuchodonosor) have discussed President Donald John Trump’s amoral plan to dislocate the suffering people of Palestine from Gaza in order to make it into a “Riveria” of the Middle East, a playground for the rich and famous, something that became the subject of an obscene artificial intelligence-generated video showing Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lounging beside in their swim trunks and a golden, over-sized state of the Trump himself near the “Trump Gaza” hotel and casino.

Although the globalists/socialists of the European Union are wrong about almost everything, especially about the tragic state of affairs in Ukraine, which is teetering on the brink of total destruction as they continue to prop up the grifter named Volodymyr Zelensky in his quest to keep the war going and thus himself from facing elections and electoral defeat, they are absolutely correct to condemn President Trump’s plan for Gaza:

A $53 billion Arab-backed plan for the reconstruction of Gaza has garnered support from France, Germany, Italy and the U.K., after receiving pushback from the U.S. and Israel. 

"The plan shows a realistic path to the reconstruction of Gaza and promises – if implemented – swift and sustainable improvement of the catastrophic living conditions for the Palestinians living in Gaza," the foreign ministers wrote in a joint statement. 

The foreign ministers called for a post-war plan based on "a solid political and security framework," but reiterated the need for Hamas to not be able to govern Gaza. Additionally, the European leaders said that they are supportive of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) "central role" in a post-war Gaza and "the implementation of its reform agenda."

The $53 billion Egyptian plan was meant as a counter to President Donald Trump’s U.S. takeover idea and comes after Cairo rejected the idea of accepting displaced Gazans for "national security" reasons. While Trump’s plan would resettle Palestinians outside the Strip, Egypt’s proposal focuses on Palestinian-led reconstruction efforts. 

Both the U.S. and Israel have rejected the Arab-backed plan for Gaza reconstruction. Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said in a statement that the plan "fails to address the realities of the situation following October 7th, 2023, remaining rooted in outdated perspectives."

Marmorstein’s statement also criticized the plan for its reliance on the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). He says that both the PA and UNRWA "have repeatedly demonstrated corruption, support for terrorism, and failure in resolving the issue."

While U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff called the plan a "good faith first step," State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters that it "does not fulfill the requirements, the nature of what President Trump is asking for."

Additionally, National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes expressed concerns about the plan in a statement provided to Fox News Digital.

"The current proposal does not address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable, and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance. President Trump stands by his vision to rebuild Gaza free from Hamas."

Trump received heavy criticism last month when he suggested the U.S. take over Gaza during a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netnayahu. Trump’s proposal would involve the relocation of Palestinians and turning the enclave into the "Riviera of the Middle East." (European leaders defy Trump, Israel with support of Egypt's Gaza plan.)

Moreover, President Trump has said that all Palestinians will face certain death if they do not release the remaining Israeli hostages that have been held by the Hamas savages since October 7, 2023, thus blaming all Palestinians for the actions of Hamas, whose leaders exercise a de facto control over Gaza but are in the de jure government thereof (the Palestinian Authority, such as it is, is nominally in charge legally). While the actions of Hamas, which was, if you recall, propped up in 2013 by the Israeli Mossad, are indeed horrific, so is the threatening of death to all Palestinians because the members of Hamas have used raw terrorism to kill innocent Israeli citizens to avenge the injustices done to Palestinians by Israeli governments from 1948 to the present day.

One Palestinian author expressed his disbelief that a President of the United States of America could propose the killing of all Palestinians to prevent crimes committee by a relative handful of them:

“To the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD! Make a SMART decision. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!”

These were not the words of some far-right provocateur lurking in a dark corner of the internet. They were not shouted by an unhinged warlord seeking vengeance. No, these were the words of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, the most powerful man in the world. A man who with a signature, a speech or a single phrase can shape the fate of entire nations. And yet, with all this power, all this influence, his words to the people of Gaza were not of peace, not of diplomacy, not of relief – but of death.

I read them and I feel sick.

Because I know exactly who he is speaking to. He is speaking to my family. To my parents, who lost relatives and their home. To my siblings, who no longer have a place to return to. To the starving children in Gaza, who have done nothing but be born to a people the world has deemed unworthy of existence. To the grieving mothers who have buried their children. To the fathers who can do nothing but watch their babies die in their arms. To the people who have lost everything and yet are still expected to endure more.

Trump speaks of a “beautiful future” for the people of Gaza. But there is no future left where homes are gone, where whole families have been erased, where children have been massacred.

I read these words and I ask: What kind of a world do we live in?

A world where the leader of the so-called “free world” can issue a blanket death sentence to an entire population – two million people, most of whom are displaced, starving and barely clinging to life. A world where a man who commands the most powerful military can sit in his office, insulated from the screams, the blood, the unbearable stench of death, and declare that if the people of Gaza do not comply with his demand – if they do not somehow magically find and free hostages they have no control over – then they are simply “dead”. A world where genocide survivors are given an ultimatum of mass death by a man who claims to stand for peace.

This is not just absurd. It is evil.

Trump’s words are criminal. They are a direct endorsement of genocide. The people of Gaza are not responsible for what is happening. They are not holding hostages. They are the hostages – trapped by an Israeli war machine that has stolen everything from them. Hostages to a brutal siege that has starved them, bombed them, displaced them, left them with nowhere to go.

And now, they have become hostages to the most powerful man on Earth, who threatens them with more suffering, more death, unless they meet a demand they are incapable of fulfilling.

Most cynically, Trump knows his words will not be met with any meaningful pushback. Who in the American political establishment will hold him accountable for threatening genocide? The Democratic Party, which enabled Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza? Congress, which overwhelmingly supports sending US military aid to Israel with no conditions? The mainstream media, which have systematically erased Palestinian suffering? There is no political cost for Trump to make such statements. If anything, they bolster his position.

This is the world we live in. A world where Palestinian lives are so disposable that the president of the United States can threaten mass death without fear of any consequences.

I write this because I refuse to let this be just another outrageous Trump statement that people laugh off, that the media turns into a spectacle, that the world forgets. I write this because Gaza is not a talking point. It is not a headline. It is my home. My family. My history. My heart. My everything.

And I refuse to accept that the president of the United States can issue death threats to my people with impunity.

The people of Gaza do not control their own fate. They have never had that luxury. Their fate has always been dictated by the bombs that fall on them, by the siege that starves them, by the governments that abandon them. And now, their fate is being dictated by a man in Washington, DC, who sees no issue with threatening the annihilation of an entire population.

So I ask again: What kind of world do we live in?

And how long will we allow it to remain this way? (Donald Trump is threatening to kill my family. Will the world stop him?.)

Well, we live the kind of world where innocent human beings have been subjected to a systematic genocidal extermination by the “civilized” nations of the West for the past six decades. Over sixty-six million children in their mothers’ wombs have been killed by surgical means since at least 1965 and the number worldwide since the late date of 1980 is over 1,727,000.000 babies. That’s right 1.727 billion babies since 1980 only! (See Number of Abortions in US & Worldwide - Number of abortions since 1973. Another website, that draws upon the statistics of the World Health Organization, of all places, shows the number of babies killed surgically globally since January 1, 2025: Abortion Statistics - Worldometer. These horrifying statistics do not even begin to scratch the surface of the “invisible” genocide imposed by means of the medical industry’s manufactured money-making myth of “brain death” for purposes of human organ vivisection, the starvation and dehydration of brain-damaged human beings, palliative care/hospice, and assisted suicide/physician suicide, to say nothing of the incalculable number of innocent children killed by chemical abortifacients (“Most contraceptives abort, and most contraceptives abort most of the time”—Father Paul Marx, O.S.B.)

That is what kind of world in which we live, a world in which those who do not see the impress of the Divine Redeemer, Christ the King, in the souls of others and thus makes it far easier for men filled with hatred to dehumanize other human beings and then subject them to arbitrary execution.

A Very Non-Exhaustive Review of Anglo-Saxon Social Engineering

Modern social engineering began during the Protestant Revolution.

This history is very important to understand as there was indeed quite a contrast between the settlement of the English colonies up and down the Atlantic seaboard of what became the United States of America and the settlement of colonies by Spain and France in the Americas.

Although it was not without difficulties and crimes against the indigenous peoples in some instances, the Spanish and the French sought to plant the Cross of the Divine Redeemer, the only true standard of human liberty, deep in the soil of the Americas. And it was within a short time of Our Lady’s apparition to Juan Diego in 1531 that a thriving new Christendom had arisen in Mexico and Peru.

The Protestant Revolution thus predestined, if you will, the English-speaking colonies of North America to the social decay and statism of the present time as the only force on earth that can keep people from reverting to barbarism and to keep the civil state from becoming tyrannical is a force that is of Divine origin, direction and sustenance: the Catholic Church.  

Sure, this is a point that I have made many times before on this website, much to the consternation of many. However, truth it is what it is.

Even a Protestant writer of the Nineteenth Century, William Cobbett, who remained a Protestant until his death at the age of seventy-two on March 9, 1835, noted in his superb A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland, that the Protestant Revolution spawned each of the revolutions that followed in its sorry wake, including the American Revolution, which turned the principles of the Protestant Revolt in England and Ireland against its inheritors in Great Britain:

350. In the foregoing chapters it has been proved beyond all contradiction how the “Reformation," as it is called, was engendered, how established in hypocrisy and perfidy, and cherished and fed by rivers of innocent English and Irish blood. Those who pretend to answer these contentions only rail against the personal character of priests and cardinals and popes, and against rites and ceremonies and articles of faith and rules of discipline, matters with which I have never meddled, and which have very little to do with my subject, my object, as the title of my work expresses, being to show that the " Reformation" has impoverished and degraded the main body of the people of England and Ireland. I have shown that this change of religion was brought about by some of the worst, if not the very worst people that ever breathed; I have shown that the means were such as human nature revolts at. So far I can receive no answer from men not prepared to deny the authenticity of the statute-book. It now remains for me to show from the same sources the impoverishing and degrading consequences of this change of religion; and that, too, with regard to the nation as a whole, as well as with regard to the main body of the people.

351. But though we have now seen the Protestant religion established, completely established, by the gibbets, the racks and the ripping-knives, I must, before I come to the impoverishing and degrading consequences of which I have just spoken, and of which I shall produce the most incontestable proofs, I must give an account of the proceedings of the Reformation people after they had established their system. The present number will show us the Reformation producing a second, and that, too (as every generation is wiser than the preceding), with vast improvements, the first being only "a godly Reformation," while the second we shall find to be " a thorough godly "one. The next (or thirteenth) chapter will introduce to us a third Reformation, commonly called the "glorious" Reformation, or revolution. The fourteenth chapter will give us an account of events still greater, namely, the American Reformation, or revolution, and that of the French. All these we shall trace back to the first Reformation as clearly as any man can trace the branches of a tree back to its root. And then we shall, in the remaining chapter or chapters, see the fruit in the immorality, crimes, poverty, and degradation of the main body of the people. It will be curious to behold the American and French Reformations, or revolutions, playing back the principles of the English Reformation people upon themselves, and — which is not less curious, and much more interesting — to see them force the Reformation people to begin to cease to torment the Catholics, whom they had been tormenting without mercy for more than two hundred years. (William Cobbett, A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland, written between 1824 and 1827 and published by Benziger Brothers, pp. 289-290.)

As we know, however, the American founders believed that the “religious liberty” they granted to Catholics would lead to their acceptance, if only by acquiescence to the supposedly “irreversible” nature of their circumstances in this country, of a de facto religious indifferentism and a full-throated acceptance of democracy, civil liberty, unfettered freedom of speech, press and conscience, egalitarianism and majoritarianism. The founders were right as Catholics by the end of the Nineteenth Century had begun to look at Holy Mother Church through the eyes of the world and Americanism rather than looking at the world through the eyes of the Holy Faith.

The history of Catholics in the United States of America is thus shaped by their living in an environment of the rationalism of Protestantism and of the naturalism and religious indifferentism of Judeo-Masonry, which is far, far different from the spirit that permeated the Americas following the landing of Christopher Columbus on the island of San Salvador on October 12, 1492.

However, Catholics cannot ignore false premises promoted by the founders, some of whom hated Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His true Church with a fanatical intensity,  or to believe that it might be possible, somehow, to produce the “better” society as men sin wantonly.

It thus important for us to remember that anti-Catholicism played a major role in the two years leading up to the approval of the Declaration of Independence on July 2, 1776, and its promulgation on July 4, 1776. The British began to increase taxation and other revenue-raising measures after the end of the Seven Years’ War in Europe in 1763. The North American extension of that war was known as the French and Indian War (1756-1763), during which New France was lost to Great Britain after the defeat of the French forces in the Battle of Quebec, fought on the Plains of Abraham (and also known, therefore, as the Battle of the Plains of Abraham) on September 13, 1759 (the French surrendered New France on September 8, 1760 after the British had captured Montreal). There would be no Christendom in New France as had developed in New Spain. Although the vestigial remnants of Catholicism would remain in New France as rivers and cities would continue in most, although not in all, cases to retain names given in honor of Our Lord and Our Lady and Saint Joseph and of the Holy Faith, the Faith itself would no longer be the foundation of social life. 

The British eventually decided to extend religious “toleration” to the Catholics of Quebec in the Quebec Act, which was approved by King George III on June 22, 1774. Being unwilling to see the denizens of the recently captured New France show any allegiance to the English colonists to their south who had been complaining about excessive taxation and royal measures that were believed to curb legitimate human liberties, the British government wanted to secure the cooperation and allegiance of the Catholics in Quebec. It is necessary to contrast the Quebec Act, which was made as a matter of sheer political expediency, with the forcible breakup of families and the cruelty visited upon them as occurred with the faithful Catholics of Acadia in 1755. 

Acadia, when it was part of New France until was captured by the British in 1710, was renamed Nova Scotia (New Scotland, the home of John Knox’s Scottish brand of Calvinism, Presbyterianism). Governor Charles Lawrence of Nova Scotia ordered the forcible deportation of those Acadians who would not swear allegiance to the British Crown and also renounce the Catholic Faith. This exercise in English social engineering, which had been employed in Ireland to kill and repress Catholics in the island of saints and scholars, occurred without complaint or protest by the colonists in the territory that became the United States of America, including by the Catholics living there at the time. 

Here is an account of the terrible story of the Grand Derangement: 

The British "Final Solution" for the Acadians was deportation. It all started at 3 PM on September 5, 1755 at the Catholic Church in Grand Pre. Following the orders and plan of the Lieutenant General, Governor Lawrence, following the decree of the King of England, the British Council at Halifax unanimously decided to begin deporting the Acadians immediately to various British Colonies outside of Canada. The vessels needed for this were to be commandeered in the King's name. By this time, the Acadians numbered some 13,000 on the Acadian peninsula alone. More and more British troops had been arriving and the Acadians were acutely aware that big trouble was brewing.  

A proclamation was issued accordingly to "all the inhabitants of the district of Grand Pre, Minas, River Canard, etc. ..... to attend the Church at Grand Pre on Friday the fifth instant, at three of the clock in the afternoon, that we may impart to them what we are ordered to communicate to them; declaring that no excuse will be admitted, on any pretense whatever, on pain of forfeiting goods and chattels, in default of real estate. - Given at Grand Pre 2d September, 1755." 

That Friday, 418 of the residents presented themselves at the Church as ordered. Colonel John Winslow, having tricked them into this assembly, announced to them that they were to be immediately deported outside of the Province and that all their properties and goods with the exception of their cash monies and personal belongings were hereby confiscated by and to the benefit of the British Crown. Soldiers surrounded the church to prevent any escapes. 

The news of this spread quickly and those who could escaped to the woods, but in vain. Their country was laid to waste. Deported from Grand Pre alone were 2,242 Acadians. The Acadians were lined up and driven to the transport ships. Women and children were loaded on boats as fast as could be provided. As if to deprive the exiles of even the hope of return, the British burned to the ground 255 of their homes, 276 barns, 11 mills, and one church while the transport vessels were still in sight. Despite the promises of Colonel Winslow to keep families together, most families were separated immediately - parents from their children, wives from their husbands, children from their siblings - many to never see each other again. The Acadians were placed under arrest and were loaded on the ships with no choice in the manner. They took only what they were wearing and what little monies they had on their person at the time. Some of the ships used as transports were not seaworthy. Consequently, two of the ships, the Violet and the Duke William, with two groups of 650 Acadians went to a watery grave in the icy mid-Atlantic on December 10 of that year.

Only one lifeboat with 27 survivors lived to tell what happened. "I do not know," observes 19th century American historian George Bancroft, "if the annals of the human race keep the record of sorrows so wantonly inflicted, so bitter and so lasting as fell upon the French inhabitants of Acadia."

How ironic it must seem for the living descendants of those expelled Acadians who now live in

the town of Winslow - a town so named in honor of the same British officer, General John Winslow, who was directly responsible for carrying out those dastardly deeds in the darkest hour in the history of the Acadians. 

About 2,000 Acadians managed to escape arrest and they wandered through the woods like hunted animals, half-clad and half-starved, in ever search of some near relative. Some made it safely into Quebec where they established new lives in such towns as l'Acadie, Becancour, Nicolet, and others. Of those escapees was one of my own 6th generation paternal ancestors,

Laurent Doucet, son of Paul Doucet (a direct descendant of Acadia's first governor, Germain Doucet) and Anne LeBrun. How they survived this terrible ordeal is almost miraculous. Today, the direct descendants of these escaped Acadians number over 230,000 souls, including one-third of the present population of New Brunswick. 

The deportation continued unabated over a period of 8 years. Between 1755 and 1763,

Governor Lawrence kept unloading the Acadians along the American coast - over 2,000 to

Boston, where the Bostonians treated them like slaves, 700 from Grand Pre and Port Royal to Connecticut, and about 250 poor, naked, and destitute to New York. New York rid the major part of her Acadian exiles by persuading them to emigrate to Santo Domingo, where most of them perished miserably from the torrid sun. Lawrence exiled 754 to Philadelphia where, being held captive aboard the ships in the harbor for three months, smallpox killed 237 of them. Some 2,000 more were removed to Maryland where several hundred of them escaped to Louisiana, Quebec, and the West Indies. To North Carolina, Lawrence sent 500, and to South Carolina, 1,500 Acadians. The Carolinians cleverly enticed them to leave in some old boats for Acadia. Of these, only 900 arrived at the River St. John. Another 400 were banished to Georgia where, preferring death anywhere in the tropics to slavery with the blacks in the cotton fields and sugar plantations, they fled. Wherever they went, the Acadians were unwanted, shunned, cheated, despised, and heartlessly allowed to die without even the care and affection given to pet animals. Only Connecticut was prepared to receive the exiles sent to her and treated them as a group humanely. In all, nearly 3,700 Acadians were dispersed along the coast in the British colonies of America. There is no doubt that every Acadian would have preferred exile in France to banishment to any other place. 

The method of dispersing the Acadians has scarcely an equal in history. Said Edmund Burke, "We did, in my opinion, most inhumanely, and upon the pretenses that, in the eye of an honest man, are not worth a farthing, root out this poor, innocent, deserving people, whom our utter inability to govern, or to reconcile, gave us no sort of right to extirpate." How right was his judgement. There were many pitiful separations in families. One case is particularly wellknown. Due to the small number of transports, Rene Leblanc, notary-public of Grand Pre, his wife, and their two youngest children were put on one ship and landed in New York, but their eighteen other children and 150 grandchildren were loaded aboard different ships and dispersed among the colonies. There were deliberate separations of husbands from their wives and fathers from their children. Men would come back home from their work in the woods or fishing boats only to find their families gone, their homes burned to the ground, and the British soldiers waiting to arrest them and force them aboard ships for permanent banishment from their lands. Yet others were taken to various ports in England as prisoners of war and placed in concentration camps such as at Liverpool.

The Ultimate Fate of the Acadians

... Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ... forever immortalized the trajedy of the Acadian deportation in, perhaps, his most well known poem "Evangeline." Published in 1847, this poem is over 100 pages in length and is a tale in verse which gives an account of a young Acadian girl's life, Evangeline, and her family before, during, and after the deportation. Due to the deportation, she is separated from her young love, Gabriel. Though she is a fictional character, this tale is representative of the many hardships and sorrows of the Acadians in this period. A statue of her now stands in front of the Catholic Church at Grand Pre. In the poem, Evangeline finally locates Gabriel on his death bed.
Evangeline - Grand Pré, N.S. The exile of the Acadians is not a simple one. Oscar William Winzerling, author of the excellent book on this subject, Acadian Odyssey, titled one of his chapters "Exile Without End" - truly an understatement. For many Acadian families, ... their wanderings were only the beginning. ...they were sent to various ports in England. After linguering in concentration camps several years, various French ministries finally succeeded in repatriating them to ports in France. There, they met new problems, not always being welcomed by the native population, and often mistreated, taken advantage of, and given land unsuitable to earn a livelihood. A group of 138 of them were sent to help establish a colony in French Guiana in South America where many perished in this tropical inferno. Those that survived were repatriated to France. The Acadians were promised one thing after another by the French ministries and, with few exceptions, were always let down. Finally, in October 1773, 497 Acadians out of a group of 1,500, arrived in a place called Grand'Ligne in the Poitou region of France. In the meantime, the others were housed on the south side of the city of Châtellerault on a street still called "Rue Acadienne." This was the result of yet another project by the French government to find a suitable home for the exiled Acadians. There were about 625 Acadian families in France. Except for a small group of 160, the colony failed due to the exploits of certain French agencies which had a keen interest in wanting this to happen so that the good Acadian farmers might return to the maritime ports and further their business interests. This added to the plight of the Acadians, again believing they had been tricked and cheated, their morale was further eroded to the point of discourgement and distrust of anyone who came to them with promises of help. In 1776, 1,340 of them retired to the city of Nantes. From there, they dispersed in two groups - some went to Rouen, Caen, La Rochelle, and Bordeaux, the rest stayed in Nantes. The Acadians in France were later approached with the possibility of settling in Louisiana - where many of the exiled Acadians eventually went. After 29 years of aimless exile, frustrated dreams and unscupulous abuse of their gentle nature, the first group of 156 Acadian volunteers boarded the frigate Le Bon Papa under Captain Pelletier in Nantes for the 81-day voyage to the Spanish Colony of Louisiana. In all, there were seven Acadian expeditions to Louisiana which enabled the removal of 1,596 exiles from France. Le Bon Papa arrived at New Orleans on July 29, 1785 with its precious cargo. Only one death was reported in the 36 families on that vessel, that of a young daughter of Eustache Govin, which marred an otherwise perfect voyage.

In New Orleans, newly appointed Acadian commissioner, Anselme Blanchard, welcomed the exiles in the name of Spanish Louisiana. He looked after their immediate needs, registered them and they were given full liberty in the choice of their lands and guided them in the building of new homes. Oddly enough, the Spanish, having difficulty with their French names, began their naturalization by Hispanicizing their names. Thus Joseph LeBlanc became José Blanco and names not easily translatable were treated euphonically, such as LeJeune to El Joven and Babin to Vaven. They were given financial aid, tools, supplies, and most of them were soon settled in Manchac and along the banks of the Mississippi. When Spain's humane treatment of the exiles was learned abroad, family heads would make any sacrifice to leave France as fast as possible. Owing to the influx of Acadian exiles into Louisiana's district of Valenzuela, of which the town of La Fourche was the largest concentration of Acadians, the Acadian population grew by leaps and bounds. The descendants of these exiled Acadians have long been known or called Cajuns - an English corruption for the name Acadians. The transplantation of the Acadians to Louisiana was immensely successful. You have only to visit the neat settlements in Lafourche, St.Landry, Iberville, and St.Martinville today to appreciate the beauty and simplicity of their present life. From these communities have come many priests, bishops, educators, soldiers, merchants, professionals, and even Congressmen and governors. For this Acadian element, it was a success story. But others did not fare as well. 

Of the Acadians who escaped to towns in Quebec, many eventually resettled in the Madawaska valley and the shores of Chaleur Bay.

Many attempted to return to Acadia. Of those in Boston, 60 families assembled in 1763 and were determined to march back on foot to their old homes and farms on Nova Scotia, pregnant women and all. Those who survived the 1,800 miles trek arrived to find everything changed. English families now occupied their homes and land. Their presence frightened the English children as if they were ghosts from a different age. Broken in body by hardships, starvation, and fatigue, and crushed in spirit by human animosity, these homeless people literally dragged themselves from hamlet to hamlet in search of some corner they could call their own in a land that, in all justice, still belonged to them. Shortly, the English authorities interfered and some of the exiles fled to Prince Edward Island. Others less fortunate, were held and forced to do the humiliating work of repairing the dikes for the new owners of the land who never achieved the success of the Acadians in developing the fertility of the fields in their beloved L'Acadie.

In 1763, 12,660 Acadians had been scattered to 16 major locations, England and France being only 2 of these. By 1800, their population had almost doubled to 23,000. Of these, 4,000 Acadians from such diverse places as the Dominican Republic, Martinique, France, and the American Colonies were living in Louisiana. Some 8,000 were in Quebec and an equal number in the Maritime Provinces. About 1,000 remained in France, another 1,000 in Connecticut and other states, and another 1,000 were scattered to the four winds.  (The Acadians) 

What has been happening to the Palestinians since 1948 is very similar to what has happened in the past, and one need not mention at length here the Turkish genocide against the Armenians during World War I, the Russian Holodomor against the Ukrainians, or Red Chinese genocide against the Uighurs, or the Sandinista slaughter of the Miskitos in Nicaragua.

Alas, President Donald John Trump’s cavalier threat against all Palestinians is quite reminiscent of the Andrew Jackson’s and Martin Van Buren’s own efforts at “social engineering” to provide a “living space” for white settlers in Georgia and Florida by taking land from the Cherokees and then, in defiance of court orders to the contrary, marched them on the Trail of Tears to what is now Oklahoma in 1838 (the Seminoles held out for another twenty years, but most of them were forced to the West in 1858):

The American Indian Removal policy of President Andrew Jackson was prompted by the desire of White settlers in the South to expand into lands belonging to five Indigenous tribes. After Jackson succeeded in pushing the Indian Removal Act through Congress in 1830, the U.S. government spent nearly 30 years forcing Indigenous peoples to move westward, beyond the Mississippi River.

In the most notorious example of this policy, more than 15,000 members of the Cherokee tribe were forced to walk from their homes in the Southern states to a designated territory in present-day Oklahoma in 1838. Many died along the way.

This forced relocation became known as the “Trail of Tears” because of the great hardship faced by Cherokees. In brutal conditions, nearly 4,000 Cherokees died on the Trail of Tears.

Conflicts With Settlers Led to the American Indian Removal Act

There had been conflicts between Whites and Indigenous peoples since the first White settlers arrived in North America. But in the early 1800s, the issue had come down to White settlers encroaching on Indigenous lands in the southern United States.

Five Indigenous tribes were located on land that would be highly sought for settlement, especially as it was prime land for the cultivation of cotton. The tribes on the land were the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole.

Over time, the tribes in the South tended to adopt White ways, such as taking up farming in the tradition of White settlers and, in some cases, even buying and owning enslaved Black people.

These efforts at assimilation led to the tribes becoming known as the “Five Civilized Tribes.” Yet taking up the ways of the White settlers did not mean the Indigenous peoples would be able to keep their lands.

In fact, settlers hungry for land were actually dismayed to see these tribes, contrary to all the grotesque propaganda about them being "savages," adopt the farming practices of the White Americans.

The accelerated desire to relocate Indigenous peoples to the West was a consequence of the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828. Jackson had a long and complicated history with Indigenous tribes, having grown up in frontier settlements where stories of attacks by them were common.

At various times in his early military career, Jackson had been allied with Indigenous peoples but had also waged brutal campaigns against them. His attitude toward Indigenous tribes was not unusual for the times, though by today’s standards he would be considered racist, as he believed tribal members to be inferior to Whites. Jackson also believed them to be like children who needed guidance. And by that way of thinking, Jackson may well have believed that forcing Indigenous peoples to move hundreds of miles westward may have been for their own good, since he believed they would never fit in with a White society.

Of course, these Indigenous peoples, not to mention sympathetic White people ranging from religious figures in the North to the backwoods hero-turned-Congressman Davy Crockett, saw things quite differently.

To this day, Andrew Jackson's legacy is often tied to his attitude and actions toward Indigenous tribes. According to an article in the Detroit Free Press in 2016, many Cherokees will not use $20 bills because they bear the likeness of Jackson.

Cherokee Leader John Ross

The political leader of the Cherokee tribe, John Ross, was the son of a Scottish father and a Cherokee mother. He was destined for a career as a merchant, as his father had been, but became involved in tribal politics. In 1828, Ross was elected the tribal chief of the Cherokee.

In 1830, Ross and the Cherokee took the audacious step of trying to retain their lands by filing suit against the state of Georgia. The case eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Chief Justice John Marshall, while avoiding the central issue, ruled that the states could not assert control over the Indigenous tribes.

According to legend, President Jackson scoffed, saying, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it."

And no matter what the Supreme Court ruled, the Cherokees did face serious obstacles. Vigilante groups in Georgia attacked them, and John Ross was nearly killed in one attack.

American Indian Tribes Forcibly Removed

In the 1820s, the Chickasaws, under pressure, began moving westward. The U.S. Army began forcing the Choctaws to move in 1831. The French author Alexis de Tocqueville, on his landmark trip to America, witnessed a party of Choctaws struggling to cross the Mississippi with great hardship in the dead of winter.

The leaders of the Creeks were imprisoned in 1837, and 15,000 Creeks were forced to move westward. The Seminoles, based in Florida, managed to fight a long war against the U.S. Army until they finally moved westward in 1857.

Cherokees Forced Along Trail of Tears

Despite legal victories by the Cherokees, the United States government began to force the tribe to move west, to present-day Oklahoma, in 1838.

A considerable force of the U.S. Army—more than 7,000 men—was ordered by President Martin Van Buren, who followed Jackson in office, to remove the Cherokees. General Winfield Scott commanded the operation, which became notorious for the cruelty shown to the Cherokee people.

Soldiers in the operation later expressed regret for what they had been ordered to do.

Cherokees were rounded up in camps, and farms that had been in their families for generations were awarded to White settlers.

The forced march of more than 15,000 Cherokees began in late 1838. And in the cold winter ​conditions, nearly 4,000 Cherokee died while trying to walk the 1,000 miles to the land where they had been ordered to live. (Andrew Jackson, Indian Removal Act, and the Trail of Tears.)

Although my adoptive grandfather, Chief Red Fox, was not a Sioux Indian by birth, he did master their lifestyle, history, language, and traditions when he joined the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show in Sarasota, Florida, after serving as an underage volunteer in the United States Merchant Marines during the Spanish-American War. He learned from honest-to-goodness American Indians the history of their betrayals by the government of the United States of America and the sufferings they endured at the hands of the “master race,” and “the Chief” had a superb ability to describe that history and those sufferings with great poignancy. I had the benefit of listening to him recount some of those stories during his visits with us in Great Neck, New York, in the 1950s, and when we visited him in Corpus Christi, Texas, during Holy Week of 1961, then again when he was in New York to promote his book ten years later.

What President Donald John Trump is proposing to the Palestinians has a firm foundation in American history, including how raw terror was used by Union forces in the War between the States.

Here is an eyewitness account of General William Tecumseh Sherman’s terror tactics during his infamous March to the Sea in 1864:

Atlanta fell to Sherman's Army in early September 1864. He devoted the next few weeks to chasing Confederate troops through northern Georgia in a vain attempt to lure them into a decisive fight. The Confederate's evasive tactics doomed Sherman's plan to achieve victory on the battlefield so he developed an alternative strategy: destroy the South by laying waste to its economic and transportation infrastructure.

Sherman's "scorched earth" campaign began on November 15th when he cut the last telegraph wire that linked him to his superiors in the North. He left Atlanta in flames and pointed his army south. No word would be heard from him for the next five weeks. Unbeknownst to his enemy, Sherman's objective was the port of Savannah. His army of 65,000 cut a broad swath as it lumbered towards its destination. Plantations were burned, crops destroyed and stores of food pillaged. In the wake of his progress to the sea he left numerous "Sherman sentinels" (the chimneys of burnt out houses) and "Sherman neckties" (railroad rails that had been heated and wrapped around trees.).

Along the way, his army was joined by thousands of former slaves who brought up the rear of the march because they had no other place to go. Sherman's army reached Savannah on December 22. Two days later, Sherman telegraphed President Lincoln with the message "I beg to present to you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah..."

It was the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. Sherman stayed in Savannah until the end of January and then continued his scorched earth campaign through the Carolinas. On April 26, Confederate troops under General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered to Sherman in North Carolina; seventeen days after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox.

"Oh God, the time of trial has come!"

Dolly Sumner Lunt was born in Maine in 1817. She moved to Georgia as a young woman to join her married sister. She became a school teacher in Covington, Ga. where she met and married Thomas Burge, a plantation owner. When her husband died in 1858, Dolly was left alone to manage the plantation and its slaves. Dolly kept a diary of her experiences and we join her story as Sherman's army approaches her home:

November 19, 1864

Slept in my clothes last night, as I heard that the Yankees went to neighbor Montgomery's on Thursday night at one o'clock, searched his house, drank his wine, and took his money and valuables. As we were not disturbed, I walked after breakfast, with Sadai [the narrator's 9-year-old daughter], up to Mr. Joe Perry's, my nearest neighbor, where the Yankees were yesterday.

Saw Mrs. Laura [Perry] in the road surrounded by her children, seeming to be looking for some one. She said she was looking for her husband, that old Mrs. Perry had just sent her word that the Yankees went to James Perry's the night before, plundered his house, and drove off all his stock, and that she must drive hers into the old fields. Before we were done talking, up came Joe and Jim Perry from their hiding-place. Jim was very much excited. Happening to turn and look behind, as we stood there, I saw some blue-coats coming down the hill. Jim immediately raised his gun, swearing he would kill them anyhow.

'No, don't!' said I, and ran home as fast as I could, with Sadai.

I could hear them cry, 'Halt! Halt!' and their guns went off in quick succession. Oh God, the time of trial has come!

A man passed on his way to Covington. I halloed to him, asking him if he did not know the Yankees were coming.

'No - are they?'

'Yes,' said I; 'they are not three hundred yards from here.'

'Sure enough,' said he. 'Well, I'll not go. I don't want them to get my horse.' And although within hearing of their guns, he would stop and look for them. Blissful ignorance! Not knowing, not hearing, he has not suffered the suspense, the fear, that I have for the past forty-eight hours. I walked to the gate. There they came filing up.

I hastened back to my frightened servants and told them that they had better hide, and then went back to the gate to claim protection and a guard. But like demons they rush in! My yards are full.

To my smoke-house, my dairy, pantry, kitchen, and cellar, like famished wolves they come, breaking locks and whatever is in their way. The thousand pounds of meat in my smoke-house is gone in a twinkling, my flour, my meat, my lard, butter, eggs, pickles of various kinds - both in vinegar and brine - wine, jars, and jugs are all gone. My eighteen fat turkeys, my hens, chickens, and fowls, my young pigs, are shot down in my yard and hunted as if they were rebels themselves. Utterly powerless I ran out and appealed to the guard.

'I cannot help you, Madam; it is orders.'

...Alas! little did I think while trying to save my house from plunder and fire that they were forcing my boys [slaves] from home at the point of the bayonet. One, Newton, jumped into bed in his cabin, and declared himself sick. Another crawled under the floor, - a lame boy he was, - but they pulled him out, placed him on a horse, and drove him off. Mid, poor Mid! The last I saw of him, a man had him going around the garden, looking, as I thought, for my sheep, as he was my shepherd. Jack came crying to me, the big tears coursing down his cheeks, saying they were making him go. I said:

'Stay in my room.'

But a man followed in, cursing him and threatening to shoot him if he did not go; so poor Jack had to yield.

..Sherman himself and a greater portion of his army passed my house that day. All day, as the sad moments rolled on, were they passing not only in front of my house, but from behind; they tore down my garden palings, made a road through my back-yard and lot field, driving their stock and riding through, tearing down my fences and desolating my home - wantonly doing it when there was no necessity for it.

...As night drew its sable curtains around us, the heavens from every point were lit up with flames from burning buildings. Dinnerless and supperless as we were, it was nothing in comparison with the fear of being driven out homeless to the dreary woods. Nothing to eat! I could give my guard no supper, so he left us.

My Heavenly Father alone saved me from the destructive fire. My carriage-house had in it eight bales of cotton, with my carriage, buggy, and harness. On top of the cotton were some carded cotton rolls, a hundred pounds or more. These were thrown out of the blanket in which they were, and a large twist of the rolls taken and set on fire, and thrown into the boat of my carriage, which was close up to the cotton bales. Thanks to my God, the cotton only burned over, and then went out. Shall I ever forget the deliverance?

November 20, 1864.

About ten o'clock they had all passed save one, who came in and wanted coffee made, which was done, and he, too, went on. A few minutes elapsed, and two couriers riding rapidly passed back. Then, presently, more soldiers came by, and this ended the passing of Sherman's army by my place, leaving me poorer by thirty thousand dollars than I was yesterday morning. And a much stronger Rebel!"

References: This eyewitness account appears in Lunt, Dolly Sumner, A Woman's Wartime Journal, An Account of the Passage Over a Georgia Plantation of Sherman's Army on the March to the Sea, as Recorded in the Diary of Dolly Sumner Lunt (1918); Buel, Clarence, and Robert U. Johnson (eds.), Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. IV (originally published in Century Magazine, 1888; reprint ed., 1982); Miers, Earl Schenck, The General Who Marched Into Hell (1951). (Sherman's March to the Sea, 1864. Please see the Appendix B, below, for an account of such terror on a farm in Virginia that was personally approved by President Abraham Lincoln as recounted by a descendant of those whose property had been despoiled by Union forces.)

Pure terror against innocent civilians, and it is the sort of terror that the forty-seventh president has threatened against Palestinians without one single moral qualm whatsoever, and it has always been without a single moral qualm that the Zionists, after having displaced Palestinians Arabs, both Mohammedans and Maronite Catholics alike, from their homes in 1948 and thereafter and after having destroyed most of the residences in Gaza, have cut off electricity to Gaza:

JERUSALEM — Israel announced Sunday it is cutting off its electricity supply to Gaza. The full effects were not immediately clear, but the arid territory’s desalination plants receive power for producing drinking water. Hamas called it part of Israel’s “starvation policy.”

Israel last week cut off supplies of goods to the territory of over 2 million Palestinians, an echo of the siege it imposed in the earliest days of its war with Hamas. It’s pressing the militant group to accept an extension of the first phase of their ceasefire. That phase ended last weekend. Israel wants Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for a promise to negotiate a lasting truce.

Hamas instead wants to start negotiations on the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase, which would see the release of remaining hostages from Gaza, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and a lasting peace. Hamas is believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 35 others.

The militant group — which has warned that cutting off supplies would affect the hostages — said Sunday it wrapped up the latest round of ceasefire talks with Egyptian mediators without changes to its position, calling for an immediate start of the ceasefire’s second phase.

Israel has said it would send a delegation to Qatar on Monday “in an effort to advance the negotiations.”

Israel had warned when it stopped all supplies that water and electricity could be next. The letter from Israel’s energy minister to the Israel Electric Corporation tells it to stop selling power to Gaza.

The territory and its infrastructure have been largely devastated, and most facilities, including hospitals, now use generators. The electricity cut could affect water pumps and sanitation. A spokesperson for the Israel Electric Corporation said as far as they know, the cutoff affected only a wastewater treatment plant.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassam called it part of Israel’s “starvation policy, in clear disregard for all international laws and norms.” He said Israel has “practically” cut off electricity since the war began.

Israel has faced sharp criticism over cutting off supplies. “Any denial of the entry of the necessities of life for civilians may amount to collective punishment,” the United Nations human rights office said Friday.

The International Criminal Court said there was reason to believe Israel had used “starvation as a method of warfare” when it issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year. The allegation is central to South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide.

Israel has denied the accusations, saying it has allowed in enough aid and blaming shortages on what it called the UN’s inability to distribute it. It also accused Hamas of siphoning off aid.

The leader of the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, warned Friday that attacks against Israel-linked vessels off Yemen would resume within four days if aid doesn’t resume to Gaza. The Houthis described their earlier attacks as solidarity with Palestinians there.

The ceasefire has paused the deadliest and most destructive fighting ever between Israel and Hamas, sparked by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The first phase allowed the return of 25 living hostages and the remains of eight others in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli forces have withdrawn to buffer zones inside Gaza, hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have returned to northern Gaza for the first time since early in the war and hundreds of trucks of aid entered per day until Israel suspended supplies.

US envoy describes talks with Hamas

The White House on Wednesday made the surprise confirmation of direct US talks with Hamas.

On Sunday, envoy Adam Boehler told Israeli broadcaster Kan that Hamas has suggested a truce of five to 10 years while it would disarm. The militant group has previously called disarming unacceptable.

Boehler told CNN that “I think you could see something like a long-term truce, where we forgive prisoners, where Hamas lays down their arms, where they agree they’re not part of the political party going forward. I think that’s a reality. It’s real close.”

When asked if he would speak with the militant group again, Boehler replied, “You never know.”

He added: “I think something could come together within weeks,” and expressed hope for a deal that would see all hostages released, not only American ones. Boehler has said four of the five American hostages in Gaza are dead, with Edan Alexander alive.

Hamas on Sunday didn’t mention the talks, but reiterated its support for a proposal for the establishment of an independent committee of technocrats to run Gaza until Palestinians hold presidential and legislative elections.

Hamas’ attack in October 2023 killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, inside Israel and took 251 people hostage. Most have been released in ceasefire agreements or other arrangements.

Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t say how many of the dead were militants.

With the cutoff of supplies to Gaza, Palestinians are reporting sharp price increases for dwindling items during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

“Since the ceasefire began, the situation has improved a little. But before that, the situation was very bad,” said Fares al-Qeisi in the southern city of Khan Younis. “I swear to God, one could not satisfy their hunger.” (Israel says it is cutting off its electricity supply to Gaza.)

The Israeli Zionists are no more interested in any kind of peace, no less the peace of the One whose Sacred Divinity they reject mock, the peace of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the very Prince of Peace, as they continue to treat Palestinians as the sort of sub-humans that that Jews themselves were termed by Adolph Hitler.

President Donald John Trump’s proposed social engineering in Gaza is not unique to American administration as his first-term’s predecessor, Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro, tried such engineering in Libya in 2011 with disastrous consequences both for that country after the overthrow and assassination of Moammar Ghaddafi as well as for the Americans killed in the American compound in Benghazi, Libya, on September 12, 2011. Obama/Soetoro also tried such “regime change” in Syria but it was not until the final days of his own incompetent vice president’s presidency that the Mohammedan Syrian rebels who he, Obama/Soetoro, tried to help, were successful in overthrowing Syria’s dictator, President BasharAssad.

Guess what?

As happened after President George Walker Bush “liberated” and sent American forces to occupy Iraq, Syrian Christians and Mohammedan Alawites are now being targeted for liquidation because they are deemed to have been “collaborators” with Assad regime by the al-Qaeda terrorists associated with the Mohammedan junta now running this land where Saint Peter had situated his second see in the city of Antioch:

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's warning of a terrorist takeover in Syria looks to be coming true amid reports that al Qaeda-linked terror forces aligned with Syria’s interim new president—a former al Qaeda terrorist—are being accused of massacring Alawites as well as members of the country's dwindling Christian community. 

Syrian security forces and affiliated gunmen have killed more than 340 civilians, the vast majority of them from the Alawite minority, over the last two days, Rami Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters on Saturday.

At Gabbard's Senate confirmation hearing she said "I have no love for Assad or any dictator. I just hate al-Qaeda. I hate that our leaders cozy up to Islamist extremists, calling them "rebels", as Jake Sullivan said to Hillary Clinton, "al Qaeda is on our side in Syria." Syria is now controlled by al-Qaeda offshoot HTS, led by an Islamist Jihadist who danced in the streets on 9/11, and who was responsible for the killing of many American soldiers."

An Alawite woman from the region of Al-Ghab plain, where there is a majority Alawite population, told Fox News Digital that the forces said, "Alawites are pigs, and they have to execute all of them and the small children before the elderly people." 

The witness spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal from the authorities. She said that two militias had entered her house on Thursday and searched her residence for weapons. One of the members "put a gun to my head and asked for all my money. They took all the money and took money from our neighbors."

She confirmed reports that the Islamist forces murdered the prominent Alawite 86-year-old cleric Shaaban Mansour and his son Hussein Shaaban. Reuters reported that Mansour was killed on Friday with his son in the village of Sahlab in western Syria. Residents there accused fighters aligned with Damascus of killing them.

A sizable Christian population living in the area has also reportedly been under attack. Greco-Levantines Worldwide media reported that a young family, including their infant child, was killed on Friday.  A father and son, Tony and Fadi Petrus, were also executed by Islamists.

The witness said that in other Alawite towns—Nahr al-Bared and Deir Shamil—the Islamist militias "are entering houses and killing people and stealing everything. They are covering their faces." 

"I feel there is no safety. There is no homeland. There is nowhere to escape to, and no one to defend us. I feel fear and horrifying feelings."

The witness added that the Islamists are Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other such groups affiliated with HTS, who stormed her region. She said HTS terrorists were Syrian Arabs, because of their spoken Arabic.

Ahmed al-Sharaa and his group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a U.S.-designated Sunni terrorist organization, toppled the former Syrian President Bashar Assad in December. Assad is a member of the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The Alawites comprise roughly 10% of the Syrian population.

The Alawite source told Fox News Digital that the community is seeking support from the U.S., noting that the Islamists "want to kill all of us. They don’t want us in Syria. We have to flee Syria. They are seeking revenge from the former regime. I am asking for protection and to live in dignity, because we can be killed at any moment." 

One Alawite, who asked to remain anonymous, and who lives in Europe and is in constant contact with her community in Syria, claimed that in the coastal region and Alawite, more than 4,000 people are estimated to have been killed. She claimed to have received lists of people from Alawites who have documented the mass murder.

She and her group wrote on Telegram that al-Sharaa's "fighters have unleashed a wave of terror against civilians in Syria’s coastal cities. Reports from Alawite community sources indicate hundreds of casualties, with Christians also among the victims."

In his first comments on the violence, interim President al-Sharaa said that government forces would pursue "remnants" of the ousted Bashar Assad government.

"We will continue to pursue the remnants of the fallen regime. . . . We will bring them to a fair court, and we will continue to restrict weapons to the state, and no loose weapons will remain in Syria," Sharaa added in a pre-recorded speech.

The U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, European politicians and diplomats from the former Biden administration have sought to woo Sharaa with sanctions relief and diplomatic relations since December. Critics argue that a former Islamic State and al-Qaeda terrorist, Sharra, can’t simply sport a suit and pretend he has abandoned his terrorist ideology and methods.

Just two days before the slaughter of Alawites, Guterres met with Sharaa on Tuesday in Cairo where they discussed views about a new course for Syria.

While an official statement has yet to come from the U.N. chief, his special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, said he was "deeply concerned" by the reports of killings.

A group of Alawite clerics, the Alawite Islamic Council, blamed the violence on the government, saying that fighters had been sent to the coast "with the pretext of (combating) 'regime remnants,' to terrorize and kill Syrians." It called for the region to be put under U.N. protection.

Syrian authorities said the violence began when remnants loyal to Assad launched a deadly and well-planned attack on their forces on Thursday.

The violence has shaken Sharaa's efforts to consolidate control as his administration struggles to get U.S. sanctions lifted and grapples with wider security challenges, notably in the southwest, where Israel has said it will prevent Damascus from deploying forces.

The violence spiraled on Thursday when the authorities said groups of Assad-aligned militias had targeted security patrols and checkpoints in the Jableh area and surrounding countryside, before spreading.

Moussa al-Omar, a Syrian media figure close to the country's new leadership, told Reuters that tens of thousands of fighters in Syria's newly constituted security forces had been deployed to the coast in the operation and that order had been largely restored as of Friday night.

He said the crackdown was "a message to anyone in the south or east of Syria that the state . . . is capable of a military resolution at any time, even as it seeks peaceful solutions."

Alawite activists say their community has been subjected to violence and attacks, particularly in rural Homs and Latakia, since Assad was overthrown in December after decades of repressive family rule and civil war.

Saudi Arabia condemned "crimes being undertaken by outlaw groups" in Syria and their targeting of security forces.

Turkey, a close ally of Syria's new government, also stated its support for Damascus, saying, "The tension in and around Latakia, as well as the targeting of security forces, could undermine the efforts to lead Syria into the future in unity and solidarity."

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz blasted Syria’s Islamist rulers on Friday for their campaign to smash a nascent insurgency by fighters from ousted President Assad’s Alawite group.

"[Abu Mohammed] al-Julani switched his robe for a suit and presented a moderate face," Katz said in a statement on X, using the nom de guerre of Ahmed al-Sharaa. "Now he’s taken off the mask and exposed his true face: A jihadist terrorist of the al-Qaeda school who is committing horrifying acts against a civilian population."

Katz added, "Israel will defend itself against any threat from Syria. We will remain in the security zones and Mount Hermon and protect the communities of the Golan and Galilee. We will ensure that southern Syria remains demilitarized and free of threats, and we will protect the local Druze population—anyone who harms them will face our response."

The Syrian Alawite source in Europe told Fox News Digital that the Alawites want Israel to protect them like Israel’s offer of aid to the Syrian Druze population, who are also being targeted by the Islamist government in Damascus. (Syrian jihadists accused of killing Alawite and Christians as world stays mostly silent.)

So much for “peace and reconciliation” as Ahmed al-Sharaa ignores and refuses to condemn the slaughter of those who had been supporters of Bashar Assad. This is what the Soviets did in Eastern Europe after World War II to disqualify non-Communists as “Nazis,” and it is, as mentioned just above, what Mohammedan militants did as destroyed Chaldean Rite Catholic churches and shrines and drove out two-thirds of Iraq’s Christian population following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein twenty-two years ago this month. (The Israelis never cease to waste any opportunity to intervene in the affairs of its neighbors under the pretext of their own “security” interests even though they had long sought the overthrow of the Assads.)

There can never be any kind of true peace in the Middle East, Ukraine, or anywhere else in the world unless men themselves are at peace with the Divine Redeemer by means of being in a state of Sanctifying Grace as members of His Catholic Church:

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth, Hosanna in Excelsis. Benedict, qui venit in Nomine Domini. Hosanna in Excelsis.”

We need to pray to Fathers Marie-Alfonse and Theodore Ratisbonne for the conversion of the Talmudists of Tel Aviv and to pray also for this intention to Father Vincent Ferrer, O.P., who was responsible for the conversion of thousands of Jews and Mohammedans in the Iberian Peninsula and southern France at the end of the Fourteenth and the beginning of the Fifteenth Centuries. There is no other peace plan for the Middle East than that to be found in a conversion of everyone there to the Catholic Faith as justice is done to the aggrieved Palestinians without vengeance and as the then former Mohammedans and Talmudic Jews forgive each other as they had been forgiven in the Baptismal font. 

We must, for our own parts, fulfill Our Lady's Fatima Peace Plan in our own lives, especially as we make reparation for our own sins and those of the whole world by offering one Rosary after another to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. All human "peace plans" to produce "peace" in the Middle East have come to naught. Only Our Lady's Fatima Peace Plan can succeed, which is why we must be earnest about fulfilling it in our own lives on a daily basis so that we will be counted as faithful disciples of Christ the King, praying as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit.

Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary turned back the Mohammedan fleet at the Battle of Lepanto and turned back the Mohammedans at the Gates of Vienna and drove the Soviets out of Austria, as well as keeping Dutch Calvinists from invading Lima, Peru, and Manila in The Philippines. Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary can help us be her Divine Son's true "peacemakers" as we pray for the conversion of all non-Catholics, including Talmudists and Mohammedans, while we make reparation for our own sins at the same time that have made us, truth be told, monsters in our own right in our various rebellions against the Most Holy Trinity and His true Church.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon. 

Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

The Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste, pray for us.

Appendix A

On the Feast of the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste

Today, Wednesday, March 10, 2021, is the semidouble Feast of the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste and the Commemoration of Wednesday in the Third Week of Lent. These martyrs, who had fought together as soldiers for the Roman Empire and were stationed in Sebaste in Armenia had the time of their martyrdom, had professed themselves to be Christians seventeen hundred one years ago. They had resolved to suffer martyrdom together rather than to deny the Holy Faith. It is interesting that Jorge Mario Bergoglio does everything he can to appease false religions and to make it appear to all the world that Catholicism is just one of “many” different religions, which exist simply produce a sort of “humanitarian goodness” that was condemned as chimerical by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910:

We know only too well the dark workshops in which are elaborated these mischievous doctrines which ought not to seduce clear-thinking minds. The leaders of the Sillon have not been able to guard against these doctrines. The exaltation of their sentiments, the undiscriminating good-will of their hearts, their philosophical mysticism, mixed with a measure of illuminism, have carried them away towards another Gospel which they thought was the true Gospel of Our Savior. To such an extent that they speak of Our Lord Jesus Christ with a familiarity supremely disrespectful, and that – their ideal being akin to that of the Revolution – they fear not to draw between the Gospel and the Revolution blasphemous comparisons for which the excuse cannot be made that they are due to some confused and over-hasty composition.

We wish to draw your attention, Venerable Brethren, to this distortion of the Gospel and to the sacred character of Our Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, prevailing within the Sillon and elsewhere. As soon as the social question is being approached, it is the fashion in some quarters to first put aside the divinity of Jesus Christ, and then to mention only His unlimited clemency, His compassion for all human miseries, and His pressing exhortations to the love of our neighbor and to the brotherhood of men. True, Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness. But for the realization of this temporal and eternal happiness, He has laid down with supreme authority the condition that we must belong to His Flock, that we must accept His doctrine, that we must practice virtue, and that we must accept the teaching and guidance of Peter and his successors. Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them. He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one’s personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910).)

This describes Jorge Mario Bergoglio perfectly.

Dom Prosper Gueranger provided a brief synopsis of the lives of those who believed in Catholicism, not idolatry, on this Feast of the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste:

We know the mystery of the number forty. This tenth of March brings it before us. Forty new advocates! Forty encouraging us to enter bravely on our career of penance! On the frozen pool, which was their field of battle, these these martyrs reminded one another that Jesus had fasted for forty days, and that they themselves were forty in number! Let us, in our turn, compare their sufferings with the lenten exercises which the Church imposes upon us; and humble ourselves on seeing our cowardice; or, if we begin with fervor, let us remember that the grand thing is to be faithful to the end, and bring to the Easter solemnity the crown of our perseverance. Our forty martyrs patiently endured the cruelest tortures; the fear of God, and their deep-rooted conviction that He had an infinite claim to their fidelity, gave them the victory. How many times have we sinned, and had not such severe temptations as theirs to palliate our fall? How can we sufficiently bless that divine mercy, which spared us, instead of abandoning us as it did that poor apostate, who turned coward and was lost! But on what condition did God spare us? That we should not spare ourselves, but do penance. He put into our hands the rights of His own justice; justice, then, must be satisfied, and we must exercise it against ourselves. The lives of the saints will be of great help to us in this, for they will teach us how we are to look upon sin, how to avoid it, and how strictly we are bound to do penance for it after having committed it. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of the Holy Martyrs of Sebaste.)

During the reign of the Emperor Licinius, and under the presidency of Agricolaus, the city of Sebaste in Armenia was honored by being made the scene of the martyrdom of forty soldiers, whose faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and patience in bearing tortures, were so glorious. After having been frequently confined in a horrid dungeon, shackled with chains, and having had their faces beaten with stones, they were condemned to pass a most bitter winter night in the open air, and on a frozen pool, that they might be frozen to death. When there, they united in this prayer: ‘Forty have we entered on the battle; let us, O Lord, receive forty crowns, and suffer not our number to be broken. The number is an honored one, for thou didst fast for forty days, and the divine law was given to the world after the same number of days was observed. Elias, too, sought God by a forty days’ fast, and was permitted to see him.’ Thus did they pray.

All the guards, except one, were asleep. He overheard their prayer, and saw them encircled with light, and angels coming down from heaven, like messengers sent by a King, who distributed crowns to thirty-nine of the soldiers. Whereupon, he thus said to himself: ‘There are forty men; where is the fortieth crown?’ While he was thus pondering, one of the number lost his courage; he could bear the cold no longer, and threw himself into a warm bath, which had been placed near at hand. His saintly companions were exceedingly grieved at this. But God would not suffer their prayer to be void. The sentinel, astonished at what he had witnessed, went immediately and awoke the guards; then, taking off his garments, he cried out, with a loud voice, that he was a Christian, and associated himself with the martyrs. No sooner did the governor’s guards perceive that the sentinel had also declared himself to be a Christian, than they approached the martyrs, and broke their legs with clubs.

All died under this torture except Melithon, who was the youngest of the forty. His mother, who was present, seeing that he was still living after his legs were broken, thus encouraged him: ‘My son, be patient yet a while. Lo! Christ is at the door, helping thee.’ But, as soon as she saw the other bodies being placed on carts, that they might be thrown on the pile, and her son left behind (for the impious men hoped that, if the boy survived, he might be induced to worship the idols), she lifted him up into her arms, and, summing up all her strength, ran after the wagons, on which the martyrs’ bodies were being carried. Melithon died in his mother’s arms, and the holy woman threw his body on the pile, where the other martyrs were, that as he had been so united with them in faith and courage, he might be one with them in burial, and go to heaven in their company. As soon as the bodies were burnt, the pagans threw what remained into a river. The relics miraculously flowed to one and the same place, just as they were when they were taken from the pile. The Christians took them, and respectfully buried them. (Matins, The Divine Office, The Feast of the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste.)

By the way, heresy, apostasy, blasphemy, and unbelief are sins, not that Jorge Mario Bergoglio believes this to be so, of course.

Dom Prosper Gueranger’s prayer to the Forty Holy Martys of Sebaste provides quite a contrast with the readiness of the conciliar “popes” to please men as they offend God in their beliefs, words, and deeds:

Valiant soldiers of Christ, who meet us, with your mysterious number, at this commencement of our forty days’ fast, receive the homage of our devotion. Your memory is venerated throughout the whole Church, and your glory is great in heaven. Though engaged in the service of an earthly prince, you were the soldiers of the eternal King: to Him were you faithful, and from Him did you receive your crown of eternal glory. We also are His soldiers; we are fighting for the kingdom of heaven. Our enemies are many and powerful; but, like you, we can conquer them, if, like you, we use the arms which God has put in our hands. Faith in God’s word, hope in His assistance, humility, and prudence, with these we are sure of victory. Pray for us, O holy martyrs, that we may avoid all compromise with our enemies; for our defeat is certain, if we try to serve two masters. During these forty days, we must put our arms in order, repair our lost strength, and renew our engagements; come to our assistance, and get us a share in your brave spirit. A crown is also prepared for us: it is to be won on easier terms than yours; and yet we shall lose it, unless we keep up within us an esteem for our vocation. How many times, in our past lives, have we forfeited that glorious crown! But God, in His mercy, has offered it to us again, and we are resolved on winning it. Oh, for the glory of our common Lord and Master, make intercession for us. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of the Holy Martyrs of Sebaste.)

Placing our total trust in Our Lady, who wants all non-Catholics to convert to the true Faith lest they perish in the flames of hell if they persist in their heresy or unbelief, we pray her Most Holy Rosary today and every day in Lent to beg her for the graces we need to reform our own tepid and sinful lives lest we perish in the flames to which non-Catholics and heretics are consigned.

Appendix B

A Note from a Reader in 2010

I appreciated very much your excellent article of Feb. 16, Not A Mention of Christ the King, especially your information in regard to Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln’s war had a dramatic effect on my own family. I have a dozen blood relatives who fought for the Confederacy, most of whom were wounded, including lost limbs, with one missing in action and presumed killed. In regard to the Battle of Cold Harbor, the Cold Harbor Property, which sat at a crossroads where five roads met, and still do, was a 182-acre farm, where sat the Cold Harbor Tavern (Burnett’s Inn) and four other buildings, all owned by my great, great grandfather, Isaac Burnett. He lived in the tavern with his wife, his older sister, and his nine daughters and four sons. His son, George, my great grandfather, was the only Confederate soldier from Cold Harbor. My grandmother was born in the Tavern in 1880. The Battle of Cold Harbor was the bloodiest  short battle of the War, with the most intense fighting taking place within a half mile of the tavern. Some 7,000 Union soldiers were killed in twenty minutes in the main assault on June 3, 1864. Both the armies of George McClellan and Grant camped on Isaac Burnett’s property in 1862 and in 1864, with devastating results. In the words of Martha Burnett, Isaac’s 21-year old daughter at the time, “In the month of June 1864 General Grant’s army came on the premises and swept it clean of everything in the way of supplies for man and beast.” The Confederate never took anything from the property. Martha, on one occasion, saw a Union soldier take a large glass bowl from the tavern and hide it in a haystack. She went out in the night and hid it in another haystack. Today that bowl belongs to a cousin who lives in Williamsburg. Claims made by the family after the War in the amount of $10,415.00, a huge amount in those days, were denied by the U.S. Government.