Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Donated to Israeli Organization That Called to Behead Christians

To fend off anti-Semitism accusations, the Christian Zionist congresswoman boasted of her contributions to the Temple Institute, the key organization actively seeking to initiate an apocalyptic war.

The Forward revealed that Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote in her memoir that she personally donated to the Temple Institute, an Israeli-state funded organization dedicated to the destruction of the Dome of the Rock – the world’s oldest Islamic shrine – and the construction of a Jewish temple in its place.

Greene wrote that she “donated to the Temple Institute in Israel, a fund that helps rebuild the Jewish temple on the Temple Mount in Israel” and this was done to counter anti-Semitism accusations following her comments about “Jewish space lasers” in 2018.

The Temple Institute, located prominently in the Jewish quarter of the Old City at the top of the stairs leading up from the Western Wall plaza, carries out numerous activities to accomplish its goal. It operates a yeshiva, a museum for Israelis and foreigners alike, creates architectural plans, builds vessels to be used in the temple, trains personnel to perform religious duties, including a priestly choir, produces propaganda, and performs animal sacrifice events for the public to normalize antiquated temple culture.

The Temple Institute is headed by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, long one of the most influential and extreme rabbis in the settler movement.

In 2015, journalist David Sheen and I recorded Ariel explaining how Israel must carry out genocidal conquests of foreign lands, forcing the conquered population to renounce their religions, destroy their mosques and churches, swear fealty to Zionism, and follow seven biblical laws for non-Jews. Those who resist are to be decapitated by sword.

“This is what the Torah commanded us,” he explained, “‘When thou draweth nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it’ [Deuteronomy 20:10]. What is meant by ‘peace’? Maimonides says that they must agree to follow the seven Noahide laws … Meaning, you ask them, ‘Do you follow the seven laws? If so, we will allow you to live.’ If not, you kill all of their males, by sword. You only leave the women.

“How do you leave them? They must all agree to follow the seven laws. And that is how you impose the seven laws on that city. We will conquer Iraq, Turkey. We will get to Iran, too. We will impose the seven Noahide laws on all of these places.

“You say, ‘I call upon you in peace.’ If they raise the flag [of surrender] and say, ‘From now on there is no more Christianity, no more Islam,’ the mosques and the Christian spires and their crosses come down, ‘from now on we follow the seven Noahide laws.’”

Two years before, then-Mayor of Jeruslaem Nir Barkat presented Ariel with the Jerusalem Award, which the Temple Institue’s Youtube channel described as an “important token of recognition for one of the most important and revolutionary educators and visionaries in the modern era of the state of Israel.” It adds that “For 25 years, Rabbi Yisrael Ariel has been educating the public as to the imperative of rebuilding the Holy Temple, and the unparalleled part it will fulfill in reuniting nation with nation, and mankind with its Creator.  

Ariel hails from a prominent religious Zionist family. His brother, Yaakov Ariel, is the chief rabbi of Ramat Gan, and was previously under consideration to become chief rabbi of Israel. Yisrael Ariel came to public prominence in 1981 as the number two on the Kach list, the party headed by Rabbi Meir Kahane, the firebrand rabbi who openly advocated a theocratic dictatorship and openly demandtec expulsion of all Palestinians – which at that time was considered taboo. Kach party was disqualified from running in 1988 and banned in 1994, though its members continued their activities.

In 1983, Ariel oversaw a plot to destroy the al-Aqsa compound, and was given a six-month suspended sentence.

Yisrael Ariel under arrested in 1983 for his part in a plot to destroy the al-Aqsa compound. Source: The Jerusalem Post. March 13, 1983.

During his stint behind bars, Ariel formulated a strategic shift away from radical action to popularizing the temple ideology in Israeli society through its Education Ministry.

To achieve this, he opened the Temple Institute in 1987, immediately gaining support from the Israeli government and Zionist billionaires in the United States.

The Temple Institute. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

As the Temple Institute has expanded, its ties to the government have too. Between 2003 and 2013, the Education Ministry and the Culture and Sport Ministry funded between $86,000 and $200,000 to the Temple Institute. Former Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan personally donated $12,000 to the Temple Institute. It is also substantially funded from pro-Israel donors in the United States. 

Today, the Temple Institute provides curriculum to the Education Ministry, inculcating genocidal ideology into Israel's youth under the guise of lessons on “Love of the Land and the Temple.”

As Israeli society has shifted further right-wing, Ariel’s Temple Institute has been at the forefront of the settler movement’s focus on taking over the al-Aqsa compound. 

Blasting the horns of genocide

On November 17, ten days into the war on Gaza, the Temple Institute published a video seeking donations to produce trumpets of war.

“The Temple Institute has begun manufacturing silver trumpets to distribute to the IDF rabbis so that they can be sounded by our soldiers as they make their way to battle,” the video said. “We are calling upon friends of Israel around the world to play a true Torah role in Israel's war against today's Amalek, the villainous tribe who "happened upon you on the way and cut off all the stragglers at your rear, when you were faint and weary, and he did not fear G-d." (Deuteronomy 25:18)”.

In Jewish biblical texts, Amalek is a nation whose soldiers ambushed the Israelites as they traveled to the Promised Land.  God then commands King Saul to kill every person in Amalek, sparing no one.

“This is what the Lord Almighty says,” the prophet Samuel tells Saul. “‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also invoked the destruction of Amalek in his October 28 speech as the ground invasion of Gaza began. 

“They are committed to completely eliminating this evil from the world,” he said. “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.”

Temple ideology in Gaza

This genocidal ideology is pulsing through the veins of the Israeli military as it assaults Gaza.

Ezra Yachin, the former member of the fascist Zionist militia known as the Lehi, the charter of which called for the establishment of a third temple, preached about genocide to soldiers preparing to invade Gaza, and told them that the war was a biblical event. 

“All the prophecies sent by the prophets are about to occur,” he proclaimed. 

On November 13, The Temple Institute posted a photo to X of a soldier in Gaza with a Temple patch on his uniform. 

“Soldiers of the IDF are fighting with all their might & hearts & souls for the land of Israel, the people of Israel & the G-d of Israel. This soldier made that clear when he attached an arm patch depicting the Holy Temple and the word Dvir - ancient Hebrew for the Holy of Holies!”

An Israeli tank gunner in Gaza with a Temple patch on his sleeve. Source: X/Temple Institute

The Israeli military did not comment on the photo or denounce the soldier, implying its tacit approval. This comes amid a long-term process of theocratization of the Israeli military.

An Israeli soldier in Gaza poses in front of a defaced painting of the Dome of the Rock with the phrase “May the Temple be built soon in our days”. Source: Arnon Segal/X

Another soldier posed in front of a wall, pock marked with bullet holes, painted with an image of the Dome of the Rock. Soldiers had defaced the painting with the phrase “May the Temple be built soon in our days" – a Jewish prayer for the building of the temple that has been appropriated by Temple movement adherents to call for its physical construction. Next to that, they scrawled “MASHIAH NOW” – a call for the anointing of a king messiah and for Israel to convert into a total theocracy.

Israeli soldiers in Gaza’s parliament shortly before blowing it up. Source: Arnon Segal/X

When Israeli soldiers invaded the Gaza parliament, which is adorned with a Dome of the Rock, they celebrated their conquest with a photo that went viral.

Arnon Segal, a journalist and ideologue of the Temple movement, commented, “The Israeli absurdity: Golani soldiers wave the Israeli flag on the background of the Dome of the Rock in the Hamas parliament in Gaza, but cannot wave the Israeli flag on the Dome of the Rock in the heart of Israel's capital.”

As the war on Gaza rages on, the Temple ideology – with contributions from Rep. Greene – is front and center.