One of the purposes of terrorist acts is to cause the other side to overreact against innocent people thus causing more people to become alienated from the government and join the terrorists' cause. Terrorist acts are designed to provoke an overreaction from the other side. This is the purpose of terrorist acts regardless what ideas happens to motivate the terrorists, whether they are right wing, left wing, racist, secular, religiously based, etc.
How did PCG's leaders respond to the catastrophe of 9/11? Did what they say about Muslims change after 9/11?
But it is impossible to assess how 9/11 changed the view of PCG's elites without first assessing what they said about Muslims before 9/11.
So with these facts in mind let us see what PCG's recruitment magazine, The Philadelphia Trumpet, had to say about Muslims before 9/11.
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| PCG was more fixated on saying Germany will soon conquer America. (June 1998 issue.). |
Before 9/11 PCG's recruitment magazine, The Philadelphia Trumpet, paid comparatively little attention to the Middle East.
If anything they seemed to fear monger about Europe and China more often then the Middle East.
Many of these articles discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. PCG's leaders teach that the State of Israel will somehow become alienated from the United States, become desperate to make peace with the Palestinians and a German led European Union will cunningly craft a peace treaty only for the Europeans to suddenly betray the State of Israel and conquer it. This teaching is summarized in Gerald Flurry's 2001 booklet, Jerusalem in Prophecy. Of course these are simply false prophecies bound to fail. But the real purpose of these doctrines is to gain more tithe paying recruits for PCG.
Often those articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict fear monger that the Papacy is preparing to intervene in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Israel's eventual detriment. But that is a part of PCG's paranoid views about the Papacy, not about Muslims. It is PCG's assertion that Europe will soon conquer the State of Israel.
There is surprisingly little coverage of the Second Intifada between Israelis and Palestinians.
Surprisingly few of these articles seem to focus upon Iran. In a previous post I listed only one article discussing Iran before 9/11, namely "Merchants of Death" by J. Tim Thompson (August 1998). This suggests that PCG's dogma of Iran being the King of the South was comparatively unimportant in PCG's tapestry of doctrines before 9/11.
So it would appear that before 9/11 PCG's leaders were not as concerned about the Middle East as they are now and were not particularly focused on Iran. This would suggest that PCG's leaders were not particularly interested in exploiting fear about Iran to gain attention from potential recruits. I find this possibility quite surprising.
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Here follows a list of some of the articles in PCG's recruitment magazine, The Philadelphia Trumpet, that discusses Muslim majority countries before 9/11.
My comments are in brackets ( ).
1998
May
Israeli Pullback Continues
Israel Keeps Courting EU
(Back in 1998 and to this day, seventeen years later, PCG's leaders teach that the State of Israel will somehow become alienated from the United States, become desperate to make peace with the Palestinians and a German led European Union will cunningly craft a peace treaty only for the Europeans to suddenly betray the State of Israel and conquer it.)
August
The Last Crusade by Gerald Flurry
( As seen here and here some Muslims, not properly understanding how marginal PCG actually is in America, have seen this article and spread ill founded assertions that PCG was somehow "in the know" regarding alleged American plans against Muslim majority countries. Of course this is complete nonsense utterly divorced from reality. But this reaction reveals the toxic and dangerous influence PCG's inflammatory writings can have upon people unaware of the true nature of PCG.
This article appears as a chapter in Gerald Flurry's booklet, The King of the South.)
The History and Prophecy of the Middle East by Stephen Flurry.
(Stephen Flurry's article is plagiarized from HWA's booklet, The Middle East in Prophecy. It was later adapted into a booklet.)
Merchants of Death by J. Tim Thompson.
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| PCG also constantly fear mongers about China. (January 1999 issue.) |
1999
February
Alliance in Doubt?
(This article discusses tensions between Israel and Turkey.)
Sitting Ducks
March-April
The Other Hussein by Ron Fraser
(Here Fraser exploits the death of King Hussein of Jordan to fear monger about Saddam Hussein. Unlike most Muslims King Hussein was portrayed favorably by PCG's leaders because of nostalgic memories of HWA's association with King Hussein and PCG's doctrine that PCG members will in the future flee to a place of safety in Petra, Jordan. This is a doctrine inherited from HWA's WCG.)
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| PCG scare mongering about Europe again. (August 1999 issue.) |
2000
February
Once and Future Battlefield by Joel Hilliker
March-April
A toehold in Jerusalem
June
The Shameful Lockerbie Trial by Gerald Flurry
(Here Flurry condemns the trial about the Lockerbie bombing complaining that it would not bring Gaddafi to trial and get convicted. Today PCG likes to portray Gaddafi as a victim of Islamists in order to demonize Libyans as minions of Al Qaeda and thus denying the agency of the Libyan people to influence their own affairs.)
August
Outfoxed in "Desert Fox"
(Here PCG's fear monger about Iraq portraying Saddam Hussein's regimes as extremely dangerous. Clearly PCG's writers had not the slightest idea of what would soon occur.)
November
(Strangely enough PCG's leaders give little discussion about the Second Intifada. Around this time relations between Israelis and Palestinians deteriorated into the openly armed conflict called the Second Intifada. Note how even though armed conflict had broken out between Israelis and Palestinians leading to the deaths of a thousand Israelis and about three thousand Palestinians between 2000 and 2005 how few of their articles discuss it. Some of these articles are devoted to paranoid speculation that the Pope will intervene in a way disadvantageous to the State of Israel.)
How Mideast Violence Will Affect YOU! by Gerald Flurry
Israel's Dead End by Joel Hilliker
Give Jerusalem to God
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| PCG says that America will soon be destroyed. By Europe. (May 2001 issue.) |
2001
February
Electronic Jihad by Andrew Locher and Jason Hensley
Year of Rediness
March-April
Muscling into the Mideast by Ron Fraser
Whose Holy City? by Ron Fraser
Devious Alliances by Ron Fraser
Back With a Vengeance by Joel Hilliker
June
Murders in Tekoa by Gerald Flurry
(This article discusses the murder of several Israeli Jews at Tekoa. Sadly their deaths are here exploited to promote PCG's false prophecies.)
August
Israel's Lost Vision by Gerald Flurry
The Last Crusade by Gerald Flurry
(A reprint of the 1998 article mentioned above.)
The Counterfeit Peacemaker by Joel Hilliker
(Here Hilliker insists that the European Union will intervene in the affairs of the State of Israel, at first peacefully, but he insists it will lead to Israel being conquered by a German led European Empire.)
September-October
Turning Up the Heat?
***
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| Last issue printed before 9/11. (September-October 2001 issue.) |
The September-October 2001 issue of The Philadelphia Trumpet was the last issue published before 9/11.
(At the top of the cover it asks, "Isolationist America?" Clearly PCG's leaders had no idea what would soon occur.)
What happened after 9/11 in PCG's writings?
That is for another post.
To be continued...
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