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December 25, 2002 Opinion Editorials http://www.aljazeerah.info |
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Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
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Where are the
Wise Men and Women? Does anybody
remember Bethlehem? By Linda Heard
The lights are blinking, the malls are full and so are our stomachs. Fat Santas hand out plastic toys, with plastic smiles above fake beards. As we scramble to make our last minute purchases, we worry about how long the Turkey has to cook; whether we have enough chocolate log and how will we possibly survive an entire day with the in-laws. The strains of carols and Christmas songs fill the air as we head to the nearest bar to enjoy that Christmas drink. Shimmering firs and gaudy decorations, exchanging gifts we can often ill afford, Christmas pudding with brandy butter, the big match, a shmaltzy musical, and a monumental hangover are what Christmas is all about. Bah! This year we could do with a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past. We need to be reminded of just what we are supposed to be celebrating. We need to be taken by the hand to the birthplace of the child who grew up advocating peace, forgiveness, love and goodwill to all men - the town of Bethlehem. This is the town where, tired and hungry, Mary and her carpenter husband Joseph took refuge in a stable because there was no room at the inn. This is the very place where Jesus drew his first breaths as foretold by the stars, which guided three wise men to his side. The child brought a message of hope to mankind and forever more Bethlehem, or 'Home of Bread' represented all that is good in the world. But on this Christmas at the end of the year 2002, there is little bread in Bethlehem and even less hope. Its ancient cobbled streets are over-run with the ugly tanks and armored personnel carriers of an occupying power. Its people are hungry, their children suffering from malnutrition and fear, their mothers fighting anemia and stress, their fathers, anger and frustration. There will be few wise men and women from foreign lands in Bethlehem this Christmas, most frightened away by the harsh trappings of occupation. Most of its inns will be empty, its souvenir shops closed and its roads will remain unlit due to lack of funds. But what do we care? After all, we dwell in lands of plenty and relative safety. We don't have to worry about our children being filled with bullet holes while still clutching a stone. We don't expect to be hit by a tank shell while shopping in the market and we can reasonably expect our elderly mothers and fathers to die in their beds, not gunned down in the streets near our homes. When women give birth in our societies, they expect to receive the best pre and post natal treatment both for themselves and their babies. In the West Bank, newborns are lucky to survive at all. Many are born at roadblocks while 17 have died from complications because the IDF willfully prevented ambulances from reaching their mothers. Who knows? If Jesus had been born last week he may not have been one of the lucky ones. We sit smug in our pretty, climate-controlled houses and apartments with perhaps a Snow Man gracing the garden, a mistletoe wreath on the front door and a blaze of Poinsettia around the hearth. 'Merry Christmas' we cry to all and sundry truly believing that our hearts are filled with kindness and cheer. After all, we gave a dollar to the Red Cross and a box of chocolates to the recently widowed woman next door. Heck! We even plan to attend Midnight Mass. We must be good people. Right? Yes, sure, we're good people. We are so well behaved that we only see what we are supposed to see. Although we know in our heart-of-hearts that a force that flagrantly ignores UN resolutions and the Geneva Conventions has illegally occupied the West Bank and Gaza, we tell ourselves that it's none of our business. And in any case, the Israelis have so much more in common with us. Many of those 'nice settlers' came from the US. They are used to having a pool. It's too bad if the neighboring Palestinians don't have enough water to drink or to irrigate their olive groves, but Americans have to keep their standards you know. Right? In any case, most of those Palestinians are Moslems. Last September 19 Moslem terrorists used passenger planes to knock down buildings in New York and Washington. Our governments took their revenge on our behalf and bombed Afghanistan. It's a pity that a few brides and grooms were among the more than 4,000 dead but there's always collateral damage, you know. Shame about the dead babies under the rubble too. Now our leaders are getting set to invade Iraq, and perhaps the entire Middle East and the Gulf. Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands could well lose their lives, others could suffer terrible injuries, unimaginable man-made diseases could be unleashed on the planet, perhaps a nuclear bomb could be dropped as a message from the superpower. We want to kick butt to avenge the victims of 9-11. We'll show those Moslems that they can't mess with us and get away with it. And we can hardly blame the Israelis if they take the opportunity to kick those pesky Palestinians and their suicide bombers across the Jordan River while they have the chance. Right? Back in the birthplace of Jesus, worshipers exiting Saint Catherine's Church last Sunday said that this Christmas is destined to be the bleakest they have ever known. "We've been robbed of our freedom," said one whose business was demolished by the Israeli army two years ago. Another spoke of being unable to celebrate this year because 'we're psychologically battered after two years of death and wanton destruction." Last year the Church of the Nativity came under attack by Israeli forces and even the statue of the Virgin Mary atop the church was damaged. A monk and a bell ringer were shot and killed by trigger happy Israeli soldiers and all the while we swallowed the lies put out by our governments and their propaganda arms that clergy and nuns were being held hostage by Palestinian terrorists. Where were the outraged Christians then, and where are they now? Oh, how we love to dress up our children and take them to church to gaze at the pastoral scene with baby Jesus as its centerpiece or, perhaps, we go to watch them acting in a nativity play. We may even shed a tear as we watch little Ben playing Joseph or our sweet Jody dressed as Mary. And yet, when the real place where the Christian savior came into the world is desecrated by innocent blood and its congregation oppressed and attacked, we change the channel and pretend that all is well. Well all is not well. All is very far from being well. Millions of right-wing Evangelists calling themselves Christians unconditionally support the Israeli government, both morally and financially. Those same 'Christians' are behind the Bush administration and its self-proclaimed Crusade. Some of these 'Christians' actually want to usher in Armageddon using the Israelis to do so in keeping with their Messianic beliefs. They seriously look forward to WW3 and the demise of most of us so that the Jews can build their third temple after which the second coming is prophesied. The Catholic Church appears to have stepped back more concerned about sweeping away its wayward priests and manufacturing new saints than making a decisive stand on the future of humankind. Having said that, there are many Christians in America who do feel uncomfortable with the warmongering way their country is going. There are many Christians who feel a dichotomy between their Christian beliefs and the pull of rampant nationalism. Many have demonstrated outside southern Baptist churches and tried to spread a message of peace. In Britain, too, there are dissenting church leaders. There, Anglican bishops have come out firmly against the killing of innocent people for whatever purpose and they propose to say as much to their congregations on Christmas Day. At least, they have the moral fortitude and strength of conviction to tell the British government 'No, not in our name' and not in the name of Christianity. What a spoilt and gutless lot some of us have become! We don't deserve Christmas if all we are going to do is sit around stuffing our bellies and swigging booze pretending we are celebrating the life of Christ. Christ told us to love our enemies. Instead, we are making more enemies through our bigotry, greed and misplaced self-righteousness. We are devaluing God-given human life and when Donald Rumsfeld gets up on a podium and talks proudly of how many war fronts his armies can manage at one time, as he did last Monday, he makes a mockery of this season of goodwill to all men. Oh little town of Bethlehem, how you must be weeping. May God keep you and your people safe, and may you once again become the symbol of love and peace you once were. This can only happen when all good people unite no matter what their race, color or creed to forge a better world. Are you one of the wise men... or women? Think about it! Merry Christmas! Linda Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be reached at:
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What on earth has happened to
the UN? Arab News, 12/25/02 -
The United Nations, despite all its myriad shortcomings and failures, still represents the best hope for humanity replacing war with dialogue and negotiations. And if it has had its failures, it also has had its successes. We have no way of knowing what might have happened in a number of cases if there had been no United Nations. I believe that it is very important these days simply to be an organization which raises people’s expectations. The nations present at the founding of the UN in 1947 — and all those who joined it later — signed a document known as the Charter of the United Nations. The document clearly sets out the organization’s goals and we ought to have a look at it from time to time. The goals remain what they were at the founding: — to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and — to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human being, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and — to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and — to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. And now my questions. To which I believe the answers are obvious. What on earth has happened to the UN? Has it become no more than a vehicle of war-mongers who control it? Are there no peace-mongers left who subscribe to its ideals? Who among us was not horrified by the repeated statements that if the UN did not surrender to the will of the US, then the organization would have to bear responsibility for marginalizing itself? Has the time come for us to call for resignations from the UN? Is the organization now morally bankrupt?
The Norwegian daily newspaper Nationen (Oslo) published an op-ed
attacking Israel Shamir on Nov. 28. Here is his reply. I do not like philo-Semites, i.e. people choosing to fight
anti-Semitism, of all ills. In this world, so full of trouble and real
suffering, there is something deeply pervert in persons preferring to
protect and support — not the poor, not the refugees, not the oppressed,
but the wealthy, influential and well-connected group actively engaged in
ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The chief proponent of this well-endowed
movement is an American Jew, the head of ADL, Abe Foxman. Two years ago he was caught taking large sums of money from the
superthief Marc Rich, a crook who cheated American tax-payer and found
refuge in Switzerland. For years Foxman and his organization collected
dossiers on people who objected to apartheid and sold them to Mossad and
to South Africa of Forster. They broke into houses, stole documents, run
professional surveillance of the left activists in California. Last year,
Foxman and ADL were found guilty in the US court of law, and paid millions
of dollars to people they intimidated and smeared. Foxman’s best chum is
Ariel Sharon, the mass murderer of Sabra, Shatila, Kibie and Jenin. A new book by Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon, “The Assassination of
Robert Maxwell: Israel’s Super Spy” confirms the professional philo-Semites
have permanent ties with Mossad, the long arm of Israeli apartheid,
memorable to you by Lillehammer murders. In brief, the philo-Semites are
sleazy guys taking money from sleazy crooks in order to cover up the
creeping genocide of Palestinians. It is not strange, as the very emphasis on “anti-Semitism” is
disgustingly racist, as if it were worse than racism against anyone else.
People who decry “anti-Semitism,” instead of “racism” or
“ethnic-prejudice,” are actually saying that there is something really
special — and particularly bad — about discrimination against this one
particular group. In other words, they are racists. Your average Norwegian does not hesitate to say he dislikes Swedes.
Sometimes he corrects himself and says he actually hates Swedes. Older
Norwegians freely speak of their hatred to Germans. So do Jews: Recent
bestseller by a philo-Semite Goldhagen called all Germans ‘willing
executioners of Hitler’. “Every Jew must maintain in his heart holy
hatred to Germans”, quoth Elie Wiesel, another professional philo-Semite.
Somehow nobody is worried about these racist statements; Wiesel even
received Nobel Peace Prize from the Norwegian Academy. Germans are not exclusion. A Jewish scribe, Daniel Pipes, wrote a piece
together with a Dane Lars Hedegaard in the Canadian daily National Post
(Aug. 27, 2002), published by the Jewish media lord, Israel Asper, a great
friend of my country, saying: “Predominantly Muslim immigrants constitute 5 percent of the
population but consume upwards of 40 percent of the welfare spending.
Muslims are only 4 percent of Denmark’s 5.4 million people but make up a
majority of the country’s convicted rapists, an especially combustible
issue given that practically all the female victims are non-Muslim”. I
am not sure one can be more racist than that, even if one mobilizes Der
Sturmer. But somehow nobody is worried about it. The racist talk of anti-Semitism is used to protect Israeli racism. It
is amazing that some people still pay attention to it, and their crocodile
tears drip into newspapers. I wonder why the Third Reich did not try to
stop the Allied forces by claiming they are led by ‘anti-German
prejudice’. One imagines Russian soldiers at Stalingrad listen to such a
broadcast and drop their weapons in shame. Or is it only anti-Jewish
prejudice that is objectionable? Apparently, it is the case for philo-Semites:
The Guardian wrote about assassinated Dutch racist leader that though he
hated Muslims and Arabs, he was not a bad guy, as he liked Jews. Can one
be more racist than that? The piece by Christine Mohn is true to its racist genre. She described
me as “an ethnic Jew who defines himself as a Christian”. Like Adolf
Hitler, she thinks “once a Jew, forever a Jew”, baptism
notwithstanding, he can only “define himself as a Christian”. However,
non-racists are of different opinion. A philo-Semite is a potential Jew,
as he considers Jews being more equal than other people. A Jew by birth
can leave Jewry if he believes in equality of Man as did St. Paul, Marx
and Trotsky. Here the opinions of the church and of the Communist Party
coincide. Indeed, that was the vision of Abram Leon, a young follower of Trotsky,
who perished in Auschwitz in 1944. In his important book, “The Jewish
Question: Marxist Interpretation” (I am grateful to Noam Chomsky who
introduced me to this author), this communist of Jewish origin described
the Jews, “people-class”, historically attuned to exploitation of
others. A man of Jewish origin always could leave ‘the Jews’ and join
mankind, wrote Leon. But Ms. Mohn is totally ignorant of Judaism. She writes: “The
phenomenon of “Chosen-ness”, as understood in Jewish tradition, has
nothing to do with closeness to God or superiority versus non-Jews”. We
can believe her, or we can believe the late chief rabbi of Israel, the
greatest modern proponent of Judaism, Rabbi Kook, who wrote: “The
difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews is greater and
deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of
cattle.” (Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Jewish Fundamentalism in
Israel, p 9) Philo-Semites would like us to speak ‘good, or nothing’ about
Jewishness. But this is the prerogative of dead. In the modern discourse,
we freely discuss shortcomings of Islam and Christianity, of capitalism
and communism, and indeed, Jewishness should be discussed as well. It is
not a racist discourse: Leading modern debunkers of Jewishness are people
of Jewish origin from Karl Marx to Israel Shahak. It is not a right-wing
discourse either: The First International of Marx condemned, after long
and lively debate, philo-Semites as well as anti-Semites. Racists are often nasty and stupid. Indeed, Christine Mohn succeeded to
concoct a nasty piece proving her inability to read and understand the
text. For instance, she writes, “The most important content in
Shamir’s political agenda is that Jews are best characterized as
Christ-murderers”, while I write just an opposite: “There is no
collective guilt over many generations. The Jews should not be blamed for
killing Christ anymore than French blamed for sending Joan of Arc to the
stake.”(Freak Factory, www.israelshamir.net ) Her other claims are equally wrong. To conclude, I would quote an American socialist thinker Dave Kersting:
“We should feel offended by this dramatic concern about anti-Semitism
— at a time of OPENLY racist horrors against the NON-Jewish population
of Palestine, who are suffering from the UNDISGUISED ethnic-supremacy of
the Zionists. Disproportionate concern about “anti-Semitism” is a key
weapon in the most brazen ACTUAL ethnic violence of our time and place”. — Israel Shamir is an Israeli journalist based in Jaffa. His articles
can be seen on the site www.israelshamir.net
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For the fireplace of Bush and
Blair -
War in February now looks very likely. The die is almost cast. It will
be a bitter, hard-fought war, bearing little comparison to the easy run of
ten years ago. With his back to the wall, Saddam Hussein will fight in the
toughest, cruelest way imaginable, luring the American and British
invaders into the Iraqi cities where they will be butchered one by one and
they, in turn, will wreak vengeance, intended or not, on the innocent, the
trapped city dwellers. “There is this earth, this mud where the flesh rots, where eyes
decompose. These arms, these legs that crunch in the jaws of the boars.
The souls ulcerated and foul from killing, the bodies so starved for
tenderness they haunt stables in search of pleasure. There is this
gangrene that eats at the heart.” President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, two men who in
their own personal life have avoided war, should read Duong Thu Huong’s
searing novel set in Vietnam where she as a young woman fought on the side
of the Vietcong. Not only is it the most beautifully written novel I have
read this year, it tells you about war word by word, until you feel your
own eyes have been gouged out, your own corpse hung from a branch, and the
“dizzying sense of carrion and gunpowder.” Bush and Blair talk of how a liberated Iraq will be, with a new
democracy, human rights for all and the end of the horrific torture of
Saddam’s opponents and their children (which was first brought to the
world’s attention by Amnesty International 14 years ago and ignored by
the British and US governments which then sold Saddam arms). But the worst
of human wrongs is to kill 10,000 people (one Pentagon estimate). No human
wrong of that proportion can justify some wildly optimistic scenario for
improving human rights. And this is to put it mildly if in the end the US
decides to use nuclear weapons, a proposition now seriously considered in
the Pentagon and one that is, according to a new poll, apparently
supported by 60 percent of the US electorate. Since it is Christmas, I will mention a new book for the fireside,
“War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” by Chris Hedges, a star war
correspondent of the New York Times. Hedges made his reputation by
covering wars in Central America, Iraq and Yugoslavia. He is a reporter
who admits the closer he was to the action and the slaughter a greater
high he got. Apparently fearless he lived for the next fight. “At
certain moments,” he wrote, “I would rather die like this than go back
to the routine of life.” He imbibed the narcotic of war as happily as
any soldier seduced by the unlimited power to destroy. War, he admits, “gives a sense that we can rise above our smallness
and divisiveness. In every society, including ours, is the passionate
yearning for a nationalist cause that exalts us, that war alone is able to
deliver.” But as time went on he realized he had made a great spiritual
mistake, although Hedges is not a religious man. As the French philosopher
Simone Weil wrote, “Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or
thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first
it intoxicates.” He has watched war leaders and their fighting machines and the
journalists who hang out with them become corrupted by war. Even President
Ronald Reagan, an upright man in many ways, called Jonas Savimbi, the
rebel leader in Angola, the Abraham Lincoln of Africa, although he
littered the country with mines, once bombed a Red Cross factory making
artificial limbs and pummeled a rival’s wife and children to death. Hedges, who seems to have spent his precious spare moments as a war
reporter reading the great works of Western civilization, recalls how,
unable to sleep during the war in El Salvador, he picked up
Shakespeare’s Macbeth. “It was not a calculated decision. I had come
that day from a village where about a dozen people had been murdered by
the death squads, their thumbs tied behind their backs with wire and their
throats slit.” He opened the play at the speech of Macduff’s wife made
when the murderers sent by Macbeth arrive to kill her and her small
children. “Whither should I fly?” she asks. “I have done no harm.
But I remember now/I am in this earthly world —where to do harm/is often
laudable, to do good sometime/Accounted dangerous folly.” Those words “seized me like furies,” Hedges wrote. It drove him to
write this unusual and searing book, deeply researched but its most
precious insights culled from personal experience and his rich knowledge
of our great literature in which he excels. If for a moment I thought Bush and Blair would give it time I would
happily send them a copy to read in front of the fire.
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North Korea -
The most chilling piece of news about North Korea’s nuclear weapons
program is not that it has been resumed. It is rather the admission by
former US President Bill Clinton, that in 1994, his administration made a
specific military threat against North Korea unless they signed up for the
deal suspending their weapons program. Now the Bush White House is echoing
that threat and even more chillingly, says that it is quite prepared to
take simultaneous military action against both Iraq and North Korea. Though both Iraq and North Korea are classed as parts of the
Washington’s “axis of evil”, no two states can be more dissimilar.
One of the biggest difference is that of political sanity. Saddam’s Iraq
is a deeply unpleasant and brutal state which invaded and plundered a
fellow Arab neighbor and when it was thrown out, sought to wreck
Kuwait’s oil fields and the environment of the wider Gulf. But Iraqis
are vital and well-educated people, who despite international sanctions,
have done a remarkable job of rebuilding their war-ravaged society. The contrast with North Korea could hardly be greater. This is an
isolated, maverick regime which has already attacked its southern cousins
in one major war, that at one point threatened to go global. Pyongyang may
possess the power to confuse but there is little subtlety in its
machinations. There is another big difference between Baghdad and Pyongyang. Neither
Russia nor China has much beyond commerce to connect them with the Iraqis,
unlike North Korea where their links are deep and long-standing. Both Moscow and Beijing competed to be the guide for the North Korean
communists. First the Soviets poured money and materiel into its young
ally after the Japanese surrender and the peninsula’s partition. Later,
Moscow ceded its dominance to Beijing. Both the Russians and the Chinese,
therefore, whatever their repugnance at North Korea’s regime, still
remain important players in that country’s affairs. Bush may threaten as
much as he likes, but before he starts breaking any North Korean heads, he
is going to have to persuade both the Russians and the Chinese to step
aside. That may be a lot more difficult than he imagines. Even a
UN-sponsored US-led force could be an affront to both Moscow and Beijing
which each have borders with North Korea. Pyongyang’s international
defiance may even indeed be something which both states might seek to
solve themselves together, especially after the warmth of President
Putin’s recent Chinese visit. North Korea’s challenge and the fact that it clearly represents a
more immediate threat than Iraq also offer Moscow and Beijing the leverage
to push Bush back from an early Iraq invasion. If Washington wants to
address the real problem first, then it will have to quit its shadow
wrestling with Saddam. If Bush ignores such a trade with Russia and China and goes for Iraq
and North Korea together, he will be fighting on multiple diplomatic
fronts and in two very different military theaters. The greatest danger of
such a diverse conflict is the dissolution of Bush’s unified front
against global terrorism. Unity of purpose will only be sustained by
consensus and compromise — two words little understood in the Bush White
House.
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Defacing the Holy Land Jordan Times, 12/25/02
- THIS CHRISTMAS, churches all over the world should dedicate a special prayer to the many Palestinian Christian families who were forced to leave the Holy Land and those who remain under Israeli occupation. Israeli policies, not only under the government of Ariel Sharon, but under successive governments of all colours for the past 35 years, have aimed at systematically driving Palestinians out of their homeland. This policy is generally referred to as “transfer.” It is time it is given its real name: Ethnic cleansing. The specific question of Christian immigration from the very lands that Jesus treaded has already assumed huge proportions. The alarm bell has already been rung: In a few decades, there may be no Christians left in the Holy Land. According to Palestinian experts, at least 1,500 Christian families have left Bethlehem over the past year. And Bethlehem, Jesus' birthplace, is today under a tight cordon of Israeli occupation troops and tanks for the third straight Christmas. It is a generally acknowledged fact that Palestinian Christians emigrate in proportionally higher numbers than Muslims. The reasons behind this phenomenon are varied. The majority of Palestinian Christians belong to the middle class and are professionals, hence it is easier for them to find employment abroad. Most of them also have relatives who already established themselves in other continents. They share their religion with the majority of the Western world, thus finding it easier to integrate and be integrated. A few experts have also talked of some sort of pressure from Palestinian Islamic militant groups, such as Hamas, although this phenomenon has certainly played a negligible part in the Christian exodus from the Holy Land, compared to the brutal aggression carried out by Israel. Christian emigration from Palestine is already worrying the Palestinian National Authority. Many might have noticed that President Yasser Arafat has lately referred to Palestinian Christians even before referring to Palestinian Muslims, or to Palestinian churches even before referring to Palestinian mosques. The past decade has seen a similar example of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Serbia did not have a powerful lobby in Washington, or nuclear weapons. Israel has both. It took 10 years for the international community to speak and act against ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. How much longer will it take for the international community to come out against ethnic cleansing in Palestine?
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Christmas carols — 'a security threat' By Daoud Kuttab Jordan Times, 12/25/02
- DANNY QUMSIEH has been working hard this Christmas season to raise money so that Bethlehem's only local radio station can continue its tradition of covering the holiday events. As manager of the radio station, he was frustrated that he was unable to find commercial sponsors, because of the very bad economic situation brought about by the Israeli reoccupation of the city. So he turned to NGOs and Christian organisations, asking whether they would agree to financially underwrite the radio's important work. Just when he felt confident that the station will be able to go ahead with the coverage, an unexpected turn of events occurred. Israeli soldiers decided, on Dec. 23, to take over the building housing the station. The staff of the radio station and the entire building was evacuated and the station had to go off the air. For seven years now, Radio Bethlehem 2000 has provided live audio coverage of the traditional Christmas Eve parade, Christmas Eve carols from Manger Square and Midnight Mass from the birthplace of Jesus Christ. I should know. I was there when we first started this radio tradition on Christmas Day in 1996. Along with three other Palestinians, we started this radio station after the Israeli army exited the city and the Palestinian National Authority welcomed radio licence requests. Cellphones had been new at the time, but we were able to convert roving journalists into live broadcasters. That first Christmas Eve was very special. Radio is a great medium to create atmosphere. I remember walking around in Bethlehem and hearing Christmas carols sung by the famous Lebanese singer Fairuz in shops and stores, all tuned in to our 89.6 frequency. We had been working non-stop for nearly 24 hours and had food delivered to us. I still remember the delicious shawerma sandwich delivered to our studios by a local restaurant that wanted to show support for what we were doing. Covering the Latin Patriarch's parade was so important for the local community. For decades, this Christmas Eve parade has become a tradition of its own. Different local community and church leaders meet the patriarch at predetermined positions on the route from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. The parade culminates at Manger Square. Our coverage that day and every Christmas since allowed the public to know precisely what was happening every step of the way. I vividly remember an old woman who called the station to thank us for the coverage, saying that even though she had been unable to go out and see the Catholic bishop, our reporting helped her feel as if she was there. This memory has been brought back to me this Christmas, because of the insensitive Israeli act. The radio station, located about three miles from the centre of Bethlehem, has no strategic advantage for the Israelis. It is in the valley below Bethlehem, at the entrance of Beit Sahour, the traditional shepherds' field. At 3:30pm, on Dec. 23, soldiers arrived at the Arrart building that houses the radio station on its fourth floor and ordered everyone outside. No explanation was given. Shutting down a voice of reason and joy, cutting off a medium that plays Christmas carols and tries to keep the holiday spirits despite the anger and destruction around seems totally crazy and insane. Since Nov. 22, Israeli soldiers reoccupied this Palestinian city for the 15th time since they evacuated it on Christmas Day, 1995. They entered the city claiming that a suicide bomber had come from the Bethlehem region. He was renting a house in the village of Khader, south of Bethlehem. A 24-hour continuous curfew was placed on the city and its surroundings ever since. The curfew was eased a couple of times during an entire month. A few days before Christmas, Israel announced that it was planning to ease the curfew and other travel restrictions to allow Bethlehem's Christian Palestinians to celebrate Christmas. The radio station was beaming carols and announcing Christmas-related events when this ugly act took place. The entry and closure of the radio station was most probably decided by an officer who had no idea that a radio station was in the building or that it was playing Christmas songs. Sooner or later, someone might, or might not, say that this was a mistake. After all, he is a soldier who only cares for security. Such is the nature of foreign military occupation. Certainly an occupying force is not responsible to care about the feelings of Palestinian Christians and Christians around the world. Israeli abuses notwithstanding, Palestinians will keep tuning in to their radio and looking up in the heavens, in the hope that, one day, the angels singing like they did 2,000 years ago to the shepherd will become a reality. “Glory to God in the Highest and on earth Peace.”
The Beginning of the End of
Christianity in the Holy Land. No Room in the Holy Land
Except for Jews.
Father, forgive Bush, Blair, and Sharon for their
"pre-emptive" thoughts as we pray for
"peace on earth, good will to men"
Father, forgive them their hate of their
"fellow man" as we forgive them with your love;
Father, forgive them their "lies"
as we search for truth;
Father, forgive Sharon's hate for the
"Prince of Peace" for he knows not what he's doing..
Father, forgive them their lust for
"oil and riches" as we try to feed the hungry and poor;
Father, forgive their thirst for Arab
Christian and Muslim blood as we are weak and they are strong.
Father, forgive Sharon's occupation and
curfew of "Bethlehem" as we cross check points to worship you;
Father, forgive their loud tanks in
"Manger Square" that drown our praise and worship of you.
Father, forgive their murder of your
children, as we forgive those who vote, arm and support them;
Father, forgive their neglect of the meek as
they die hungry, cold, and sick.
Father, Forgive Our Ignorance, Our
Silence, Our Apathy, and the surrender of our Minds and Hearts to
the Powerful Few in Our Nation who have HIJACKED our Humanity, our
Values of Peace and Freedom, our Taxes, our Weapons, Our Self Respect in
the Eyes of the World, even our very love of Jesus Christ through their
instruments of words and pictures (media), their Bribery and Control of
our Leaders, and their manipulation of our Generous Hearts and
Guilt for the Holocaust (although not of our doing) to their Selfish
Ends. An end they seek whereby Jesus once again finds no
place in Bethlehem and Muslims are ethnically cleansed from their homes
in the Holy Land. AMEN
GERMANY 1930's:
"Pre-Emptive Doctrine"
During the 1930's due to Germany's military
hegemony and expansionistic lust, the world was engulfed by so much anxiety,
tension, fear, worldwide military buildups, a helpless surrender to
inevitable carnage, the aroma of pending death and chaos, regime
changes, a demonizing propaganda war against a people due to their
faith, the pompous rhetoric of a world divided into "U.S." and
'THEM"---the civilized good versus the envious evil; the thirst for
revenge for a humiliating defeat, a compliant media publishing the
government's lies for war, the civilizing hypocrisy to liberate an
oppressed people, and the ultimate proclamation of the superiority of
the white race and Christian faith toward the "infidels" in
need of reform, salvation, "regime change" leading to
their "submission" and ultimate glory.
AMERICA 2002:
"Pre-emptive Doctrine"
Seventy years later another superpower once again
inflicts the same fear, uncertainty, and emotions throughout the
world. After the bloodiest war in history, after a
holocaust against Jews, Gypsies, and Russians; after the defeat of the
"Axis of Evil", after the establishment of the United
Nations to solve world conflicts peacefully; after the western
enforced "regime change" in the Holy Land that stole
Palestine from its rightful owners and given as a "Holocaust
Guilt Gift" to European Jews; President Bush Jr. has
succeeded in re-creating the world psyche of the 1930's---a world
ruled by "Pre-emptive Doctrine" where Israel decides for the
United States the "regime du jour" suitable for
annihilation----a world where might is right, where intimidation,
propaganda, lies, secrecy, bribery, blackmail, convenient alliances
with "evil" nations, massive detentions of
'subversives" and "evil doers" without due process, a
recreation of the ever expanding "Axis of Evil", and a
"crusade" against Islam, all constitute the
"Bush/Sharon Doctrine".
What is the purpose of this "B/S
Doctrine" you ask?
1. OIL: Iraq has ten percent of the world's oil reserves. Control of such oil will end OPEC and Saudi Arabia's oil hegemony. Along with controlling the Caspian Sea Oil and Gas through military bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 2. ISRAEL: This rogue nation that has corrupted and humiliated every American President since Harry Truman, every Congress, every politician, every journalist, every media outlet, every movie studio, every book publishing company, and silenced every voice anywhere in the world that utters a word against the American protected, funded, and supported murderous, stealing, arresting, kidnapping, house and village demolishing, uprooter of olive trees, siphoner of drinking water from children to fill spas of hateful murdering settlers, builder of luxury roads for illegal squatters upon homes, wells, farms, graves, and dreams of innocent Palestinians, the killer of mothers and their babies, bomber of hospitals, schools (even a school for blind children), the sheller of ambulances carrying the wounded and dying, even a 95 year old woman in a taxi is a target for Apache helicopters and tanks, the killer of foreign physicians, journalists, and activists who seek to save a life or tell the evil of the "Jewish State". The only nation on earth in violation of every international law, of over 90 U.N. Resolutions, and the recipient of dozens of U.S. Vetoes to protect its murderous history including this last U.S. Veto that prevented the U.N. Security Council from simply expressing its concern for Israel's murder of U.N. humanitarian workers.
Israel is the true "Evil Empire" in this
world but the Christian world is too cowardly to speak out against its
terrorism, murder, assassination, "Pre-emptive Wars" against
Arab nations, its frank genocide against civilians in Lebanon from the
Sabra and Shatila Camp Massacres to the U.N. Qana camp bombing, it's
spying on its only ally, its theft and reselling of American military
and industrial technology, it's pushing America into its conflicts
with Arab nations that led to the bombing of the US Embassy and Marine
Barracks in Beirut, even its explicit murder of 34 American sailors,
wounding 171, of the USS Liberty in 1967 did not even engender a blip
from President Johnson or an investigation by Congress. It has
robbed the American taxpayer of $1.7 Trillion Dollars since 1948 (that
can be calculated), but more importantly it has robbed the American
citizen of his/her self respect, courage, independent thought, and
freedom to speak at home or worship in the Holy Land. Many
Americans detest Israel privately but won't speak publicly out of
fear, so much for "Land of the Free, and Home of the Brave."
Yet America's President wants to spend $29 Million to teach the Arab
world of 300 million people "democracy and freedom" when
neither he nor any American is free to speak their minds on Israel or
how the Judaic Talmud blasphemously portrays the Virgin Mary or
the Birth of Christ. The few courageous Americans, many who are
Jewish Americans, who dare speak out are not invited to the mainstream
media (mostly owned, controlled, run by Jews) but are sidelined
to the internet to express their horror of how Israel is defrauding
the holy faith of Judaism and manipulating the blood of Holocaust
victims to extract money, weapons, vetoes, and sympathy for the most
"evil" of regimes positively portrayed and protected by
our doormat media and government as a "democracy"---that is
the Longest Lie ever perpetrated upon humanity.
DO YOU WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH AMERICA? YOU
CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH for it means you'll have to break out of
your comfortable non-controversial shell and find a spine and a voice
to save our nation and the world from perpetual wars and terrorism.
IT'S HYPOCRITICAL: For America to call itself
a "democracy" while it supports Israel's brutality and
murder.
IT'S HYPOCRITICAL: For America to call itself a
"Christian" nation while it remains silent when Jesus'
Bethlehem is under military occupation for the last 35 years, where
the Church of the Nativity, the church of the prince of peace, is
being brutalized, shot at, clergy beaten or kept away, an altar boy is
innocently killed, where salvation is only found at the foot of an
Israel commander.. The Muslim world has never been
America's enemy prior to the founding of Israel in 1948, it's no
coincidence then that an American-Muslim clash began after that.
Thanks to Israel half of the world's population of Christians and
Muslims are subservient to Israel's demands, one out of intimidation,
the other out of ignorance and impotence.
SO AMERICA, HERE ARE THE ANSWERS YOU SEEK.
WHAT YOU DO ABOUT IT WILL DETERMINE THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD AND THE
PEACE FOR YOUR CHILDREN.
A. WHY DO
THEY HATE US?
Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel,
Israel is the answer.
B. WHY DO WE HATE THEM?
Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel,
Israel is the answer
Israel has so indoctrinated and inundated
this nation for 50 years with its lies that America's psyche and
world is now only divided into two halves:
1. A Muslim Universe:
that hates Jews, Christians, is anti-west,
violent, full of fire breathing blood spilling Jihad or holy wars, that
wants to dominate the world and convert all to Islam by the sword, hates
women, enslaves non-Muslims, wants to build an "Islamic atomic
bomb", and follows a "false, wicked, evil, murderous
religion" created by a "demonic pedophile terrorist
prophet".
2. A Non-Muslim Universe:
that is civilized, democratic, tolerant,
obeys laws, respectful of life, property, and human rights, modern,
technologically advanced, rich, well mannered, respects women and family
values, peaceful with no design to control or invade any other nation.
Israel is the role model for this universe that includes Russia, China, England,
France, and the United States. Curiously these are the nuclear
nations comprising the U.N. Security Council, the same impotent council
when dealing with Israel yet decides to annihilate Iraq or other Muslims
nations in a snap.
Israel has created a new politic of accepted
unquestioned "double standard" for America and the
world----what applies to the world does NOT apply to Israel. If
Israel wants America's opinion, it will give it to America.
God Rest Ye Merry Christian Gentlemen
in Silence While Jesus is Ethnically Cleansed from Bethlehem.
"There is a reluctance in Washington that borders on paralysis to face up to the principal obstacle to rapprochement with the Arab world in particular and the larger Muslim community in general, and that is the conviction that the United States and Israel are now as one to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state."
ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE: Washington Times, December 18, 2002)
GOD OF ABRAHAM, give us the
courage and wisdom to reclaim our nation, world peace, and the Holy
Land from their exclusive grasp for all your children, the children of
Abraham: Jews, Christians, and Muslims
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