Shabbat Siren

Shabbat Siren

Sat Nov 17, 2012 1:27 pm (PST) . Posted by:

"judy" judybalint

From: Stuart Pilichowski, Mevasseret TzionFriday. It was 4:45PM. We had already begun Shabbat services in our quaint little trailer / synagogue in Mevaseret Zion. We're a small town of 30,000 people just north of Jerusalem.Then it came. The Siren. The Warning. We're a caravan in the midst of an open, not yet developed field. No bomb shelter. We left the services immediately and proceeded outside. This memory will live with me forever. Forever. It was chilling.We all lay down on the ground. We had no shelter. The siren was still sounding. I realized I had just followed "those in the know." The veterans. Although I listened to countless radio and television interviews with the Israeli Home Front Defense on how to proceed during an attack - yes, an attack – a missile or rocket attack - that's what the siren signals – for me it was always meant for the population in the South, nearest to Gaza, not for me, in Mevaseret Zion, bordering Jerusalem, Israel's capital. I didn't realize I didn't check if my friend Bob was ok until I saw him lying next to me. Yes, the rules of evacuation to a shelter say specifically to go directly to the shelter – others will follow, do not risk delay by assisting others. They'll get to shelter on their own as well. But I still felt strange.Lying on the ground those few minutes I thought of my mother-in-law, may she rest in peace. She, upon the start of the SCUD War in 1991, immediately took a leave of absence from teaching (in NJ) and flew to Israel and sat in a sealed room as the SCUDS fell on Ramat Gan.After a few endless, eternal minutes, the siren ended. We all rose and went back inside to continue the Shabbat prayer services. "Prayer is boring." I've been hearing that for years. Well Friday evening's prayers were anything but boring.I still can't put my finger on it. But I simply can't understand this whole situation. I spend 5 days a week, from 6:00AM to 3:00PM with Palestinians and Israeli-Arabs. We work together, schmooze together, exchange a piece of fruit or a piece of gum, and talk about our families. Hakol B'seder. Everything's great. I teach them a word or two of English and they teach me a word or two of Arabic. I'm nice to them and they're nice to me. I don't believe they want to harm me, much less kill me. And I've been doing this ever since I moved to Israel 13 years ago – in Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey as well.Some think I'm naïve. Some think I'm a bleeding-heart liberal.Maybe. MaybeSo why do Arabs (generally speaking) want me (Israelis) dead? They don't even know me (us). To make a long story or intellectual discourse short: WHY THIS HATRED?Why do people bring up their children with rage rather than tolerance, understanding and love? Do you have an answer? Any ideas?I'd love to know the answer to the question I've been asking all my life.I am, by the way, not oblivious to the Hand of God in all this.There's a message in what's happening in the world as we create history here, in the State of Israel. And there's no better place to be than Israel for history in the making.A peaceful week to all. Shavuah tov.Stuart PilichowskiMevaseret Zion

Zionism's Sephardi father

 Zionism's Sephardi father by Michael FreundThe Jerusalem PostOctober 25, 2012 http://www.michaelfreund.org/12467/rabbi-yehuda-alkalai Send RSS Share: Be the first of your friends to like this. Modern Zionism is largely an Ashkenazi creation, or so popular thinking goes. After all, the World Zionist Organization was founded in Europe in 1897 and dominated by Ashkenazi Jews, who also made up the bulk of the pioneers who built the land and later declared the establishment of the state. So it should come as no surprise that it is possible to read histories of the emergence of the Zionist movement in the early 20th century without encountering the word "Sephardi" other than in passing. But to ignore the contribution made by Sephardi Jews to the return to Zion is a grave injustice, not only to our eastern brethren but to Jewish history itself. Though it has gone largely unacknowledged, the Sephardi role in preserving Zionist yearnings throughout the long centuries of Jewish exile was indispensable, dating back to the 12th-century Spanish rabbi and poet Yehuda HaLevi, whose poem "My heart is in the east" still resonates today. Indeed, this month's anniversary of the passing in October 1878 (4 Tishrei on the Hebrew calendar) of Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai, a Sephardi Jew from Serbia, presents an opportunity to correct the record and restore the Sephardi impact on Zionist renewal to its rightful place. While his name may not be overly familiar to most Israelis, his intellectual legacy laid the groundwork for the modern rebirth of Israel. Though he was born in Sarajevo in 1798, Alkalai's formative years were spent in Jerusalem, where he delved into ancient Jewish texts and became steeped in Jewish mysticism. At the young age of 27, he was offered the post of rabbi in the town of Zemun, which is today part of the Serbian capital of Belgrade. At the time, however, it fell within the boundaries of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and straddled the border of Turkish-occupied Serbia. Nationalism was on the rise in the Balkans, as Serbs and others chafed under the heavy hand of Ottoman control. This had a profound effect on Rabbi Alkalai, whose Serbian neighbors longed for liberation and increasingly agitated for independence. As Prof. Arthur Hertzberg noted in The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader: "ideas of national freedom and restoration came easily to Alkalai's mind from the atmosphere of his time and place." Within a decade, in 1834, he produced a booklet called Shema Yisrael (Hear, O Israel) proposing something which at the time was considered radical: to create Jewish colonies in the land of Israel as a prelude to redemption. In other words, Rabbi Alkalai advocated that man take action to bring about Jewish national emancipation. This notion ran counter to conventional wisdom, which primarily believed that Jews should wait passively for Messianic deliverance. Nonetheless, he developed the concept further, writing additional books and pamphlets and traveling throughout Europe to spread his message. IN HIS 1845 work Minhat Yehudah, Rabbi Alkalai wrote, "In the first conquest, under Joshua, the Almighty brought the children of Israel into a land that was prepared: its houses were then full of useful things, its wells were giving water, and its vineyards and olive groves were laden with fruit. This new Redemption will – alas, because of our sins – be different: our land is waste and desolate, and we shall have to build houses, dig wells, and plant vines and olive trees." "Redemption," he wrote, "must come slowly. The land must, by degrees, be built up and prepared." To accomplish this, Rabbi Alkalai offered novel, and highly prescient, suggestions, which included the launch of a national fund to purchase land in Israel, the convening of a "Great Assembly" to oversee Jewish national affairs, and a redoubling of efforts to revive Hebrew as a spoken language. At a time when many Jews were beginning to despair after centuries of persecution, Rabbi Alkalai offered concrete hope. More importantly, by highlighting practical measures that Jews could take, he empowered people throughout the Jewish world to become involved in a national act of self-redemption which would engender Divine mercy. In 1874, at the age of 76, Rabbi Alkalai and his wife made aliya, settling in Jerusalem to fulfill his life-long dream. He passed away four years later. Looking back on his ideas, we might easily take them for granted, as many have become part and parcel of our modern reality. But that only underlines Rabbi Alkalai's profound success, for we are merely enjoying the fruits of his labor. As a matter of fact, the extent of this Sephardi sage's influence may have been greater than we will ever know. In one of those curious twists of fate that even the most inventive novelist could not contrive, one of Rabbi Alkalai's faithful congregants and most ardent disciples was a man named Simon Loeb Herzl, whose grandson Theodor would later alter the course of Zionist and Jewish history. Is it possible that Simon Loeb came home from synagogue on the Sabbath, fired up by the rabbi's sermon about the need for Jews to head to Zion, and shared this passion with his offspring? Might the ideas that he read in his rabbi's writings been passed down in one form or another to his famous progeny? The answer to this question, like many others, has been lost to history. But Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai's impact, and that of other Sephardi Jews, cannot and must not suffer a similar fate. They played a key role in the unfolding of the Zionist drama, and we owe it to them to preserve their memory and the heritage they bequeathed us. For even after more than a century, Rabbi Alkalai's words have the power to guide and inspire us in our national mission. "We, as a people, are properly called Israel," he once wrote, "only in the land of Israel... Though this venture will begin modestly, its future will be very great."

Ejercicio militar con Israel y los Estados Unidos

Diario Judio: Internacionales | Exitoso ejercicio militar americano-israelí en caso de un ataque contra Israel (en Inglés)

Fw: A place for Jews on the Temple Mount Thu Oct 18, 2012 9:10 am (PDT) . Posted by: "Yaacov Levi" jlevi_us

Michael Freund A place for Jews on the Temple Mountby Michael FreundThe Jerusalem PostOctober 18, 2012http://www.michaelfreund.org/12431/temple-mountSend RSS Share: Be the first of your friends to like this.A little more than a week ago, I ascended the Temple Mount together with a group of more than 50 Jews from Ra'anana's Ohel Ari synagogue.Needless to say, all of us immersed in a mikva (ritual bath) prior to the trip, refrained from wearing leather shoes, and walked only in areas that are permitted by halacha.Guided by the indefatigable Rabbi Chaim Richman of the Temple Institute, and led by our congregation's Rabbi Ronen Neuwirth, we got a firsthand look at the situation which prevails at Judaism's holiest site.Put simply, it is absolutely infuriating.Brazen discrimination is practiced against religious Jews, who are singled out for special treatment by Israel's police that is not accorded anyone professing a different faith.After going through a security checkpoint, a gruff policeman told our group, "you must stay together at all times, you must move quickly through the site and do not pray. You are not allowed to pray."Not exactly the welcome that I expected to receive at a place of such profound significance to Jewish history and destiny.Throughout our visit, we were accompanied by five to six Israeli Arab policemen and two or three officials from the Muslim Wakf which administers the site. In addition to hurrying us along and brusquely interrupting our guide, their primary task was to keep an eye on our lips, lest anyone dare to move them and utter a silent prayer to his Creator.There were other groups on the Mount at the same time as ours, including Christian pilgrims from Romania, various non-religious tourists, and Israeli Arabs. None of them were subjected to the same watchful scrutiny.In the week prior to our visit, the police had arrested 15 Jews for praying or being suspected of praying (whatever that means) on the Mount. Later, when I asked a border policeman why Jews were barred from praying, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "it would upset the Arabs."The state of affairs on the Temple Mount is intolerable and untenable. Basic freedoms, such as the right to worship and free speech, are being trampled, and Jews are subjected to discrimination unheard of anywhere else in the Western world.A way must be found to enable Jews to exercise their right to commune with their Maker, without further stoking hatred and intolerance. In fact, there is a simple and very practical solution to this predicament: build a synagogue on the Temple Mount where Jews would be free to pray as they wish.NOW BEFORE you start rolling your eyes at the idea, consider the following: for over four centuries after the Caliph Omar conquered the land of Israel in 633-4 CE, a synagogue and Jewish house of study operated on the Temple Mount and Jews were able to pray there freely.Among others, this is attested to by Rabbi Abraham bar Chiya HaNassi, a leading Spanish rabbinical authority of the 12th century, who wrote in his book Megilat Megaleh that, "at the beginning, after the Romans destroyed the Temple, Israel was not prevented from coming and praying there, and similarly the kings of Ishmael enacted a beneficent custom and allowed Israel to come to the Temple Mount and build a house of prayer and study."Furthermore, he notes, "all the exiles of Israel who lived near the Temple Mount would ascend on festivals and holidays and pray there."In other words, there is a clear historical precedent that even during periods when the Mount was under Muslim control, the rights of Jews were respected. So now that it is under Israeli sovereignty, should we accept anything less? Even after the synagogue was closed in 1080, individual Jews continued to pray on the Mount, such as the great medieval Jewish authority Maimonides. In the 13th century, the Meiri, one of the greatest commentators on the Talmud, noted in his comments on Tractate Shevuot (16a) that there was a custom among Jews to enter the Temple Mount.More recently, prominent rabbinical authorities such as former chief rabbis Shlomo Goren and Mordechai Eliyahu have supported the idea of Jews ascending the Temple Mount and constructing a synagogue there.Indeed, after Israel liberated the Temple Mount in 1967, Jews prayed and studied there regularly.Rabbi Goren, who served as chief rabbi of the IDF in the 1967 Six Day War, wrote in his monumental work Har HaBayit (p.14), that after the site's liberation, "in the framework of the IDF Chief Rabbinate, we held symposiums and conducted organized public prayers on the Temple Mount – morning, afternoon and evening – and we read from the Torah on the Sabbath and on Mondays and Thursdays."Fearful of angering the Arabs, the Israeli government later put an end to Rabbi Goren's initiative.But the idea of building a synagogue on the Temple Mount did not die, and six years ago, in October 2006, National Union MK Uri Ariel proposed a similar measure, saying at the time, "a synagogue will not harm the status quo and it will not come in place of a mosque. The Arabs can do their thing in the mosque, and we will do ours in a synagogue" on the Mount.Ariel has it exactly right.Building a synagogue on the Temple Mount will not exacerbate tensions with the Arabs, it will alleviate them.By preventing Jews from praying on the Mount, and mistreating those who do, the police are actually fanning the flames of outrage, rather than dousing them.The best way to prevent friction on the Temple Mount is to accommodate the needs and wishes of both Jews and Arabs, rather than squelching one at the expense of the other.The Temple Mount is our holiest site, one that has served as the focus of our people's dreams and yearnings for the past 2,000 years. Visiting it was a powerful spiritual experience, one that touched me to the core of my very being.But it was distressing to see the extent to which Israel's government defers to threats of Arab unrest at the expense of its own citizens and their basic rights.Building a synagogue on the Temple Mount will underline Israel's sovereignty, while also guaranteeing the freedom of access to all religions that is at the heart of governmental policy. It would give the Muslims a chance to demonstrate just how tolerant they truly are. We don't begrudge them the right to pray, so why should they begrudge us? Just before the leaving the Mount, I leaned over and pretended to whisper in my 12-year old son's ear, reciting the section from the daily Amida prayer, "May You return in compassion to Jerusalem Your city, and dwell in it as You promised. May you rebuild it rapidly in our days, an everlasting structure...."Just then, my son interrupted me, saying, "Daddy, there is a policeman running at us." I looked up and saw the officer, his face contorted in anger, as if I had just stolen his donuts.The cop barked at us, yelling that we should leave immediately, which my son and I proceeded to do, but not before I stubbornly completed the rest of the prayer: "May You install within it soon the throne of David. Blessed are You, O Lord, who builds Jerusalem."May the day soon come when that prayer, and others like it, can be recited freely by Jews in the place where the Temple once stood, and will yet stand again.Latest Featured Articles from the Pundicity Network* Jacoby: What would Hippocrates do?* Berman: Defense Budget Cuts Will Hurt American Strategic Planning* Schanzer: Reality catches up with HamasYou are subscribed to this list as jlevi_us@yahoo.com.To edit your subscription options, or to unsubscribe, go to http://www.pundicity.com/list_edit.phpTo subscribe to the Michael Freund mailing list, go to http://www.pundicity.com/list_subscribe.phpPundicity

Islam’s Challenge to Israel and America Prof. Paul Eidelberg

Let us try to reformulate Islam’s challenge to Israel and America in psychological terms.  Bat Ye’or, an Egyptian-born scholar, called Islam a “culture of hate." This deeply engrained hatred, which poses an existential threat to Israel and America, gives Islam a psychological advantage over these two humanistic countries. Why? Ben Hecht offers an explanation. Every Muslim leader knows “that it is easier to win followers through their deep talent for hate than their capacity for love.â€�  He knows “that hatred is the magic for victory, if you can control it. Hatred strengthens people and solidifies them … When we hate someone we feel the courage necessary for their slaying.â€� By now it should be obvious that Islam celebrates murder and martyrdom. The Quran exalts the Muslim who “slays and is slain for Allahâ€� (Sura 9:11). This savagery is magnified and perpetuated by the hatred of infidels generated by Islamic theology. Leon Uris vividly portrays this hate in his 1985 novel The Haj. One of its characters, the famous Orde Wingate, says:  ... every last Arab is a total prisoner of his society.  The Jews will eventually have to face up to what you’re dealing with here. The Arabs will never love you for what good you’ve brought them. They don’t know how to really love. But hate!  Oh God, can they hate!  And they have a deep, deep, deep resentment because you [Jews] have jolted them from their delusion of grandeur and shown them for what they are—a decadent, savage people controlled by a religion that has stripped them of all human ambition ... except for the few cruel enough and arrogant enough to command them as one commands a mob of sheep.  You [Jews] are dealing with a mad society and you’d better learn how to control it. The novel’s central (but hardly typical) character, Haj Ibrahim, confides to a Jewish friend: During the summer heat my people become frazzled.... They are pent up. They must explode. Nothing directs their frustration like Islam.  Hatred is holy in this part of the world. It is also eternal.... You [Jews] do not know how to deal with us. For years, decades, we may seem to be at peace with you, but always in the back of our minds we keep up the hope of vengeance.  No dispute is ever really settled in our world. The Jews give us a special reason to continue warring.  Uris uses another such character, the cultured Dr. Mudhil, to elaborate: We [Muslims] do not have leave to love one another and we have long ago lost the ability.  It was so written twelve hundred years earlier.  Hate is our overpowering legacy and we have regenerated ourselves by hatred from decade to decade, generation to generation, century to century.  The return of the Jews has unleashed that hatred, exploding it wildly ...  In ten, twenty, thirty years the world of Islam will begin to consume itself in madness.  We cannot live with ourselves ... we never have.  We are incapable of change.   Later in the novel, Mudhil remarks: “Islam is unable to live at peace with anyone.... One day our oil will be gone, along with our ability to blackmail. We have contributed nothing to human betterment in centuries, unless you consider the assassin and the terrorist as human gifts.â€� Some pundits may call Uris a “racist.â€� They lack the novelist’s sensitive but clear-headed understanding of Arab-Islamic culture. Unlike apologists, Uris appreciates the tragedy of a few insightful Muslims who know they’re trapped in a savage culture of hate.Theologically animated hatred is the driving force of Islamic imperialism. In all the lands it conquered, Islam replaced the indigenous places of worship—Christian, Jewish, Persian, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Hindu—with Mosques. This could not be done without enormous bloodshed. The notion that Islam is a religion of peace is cowardly nonsense. Consider what happens to a culture animated by hate? Hate has closed the Muslim mind. It breeds intolerance. It precludes self-criticism and undermines any incentive to understand and learn from non-Muslims. Contrast Judaism, in which kindness (Hesed) is a fundamental principle. Kindness prompts the Jew not only to help but also to understand and learn from non-Jews. (In the Babylonian Talmud, Rabbi Judah the Prince, compiler of the Mishna, unhesitatingly declares in favor of a Gentile astronomical theory over that of the wise men of Israel.) The kindliness of the Jew enlarges his mind and makes him tolerant toward others. Accordingly, whereas Jews speak of righteous Gentiles whose place in heaven is assured, Muslims designate as evil everything that is non-Muslim and consign all infidels to hell.  And yet, the kindliness of Jews can also be irrational. The inability of Jewish leaders to hate Israel’s Islamic enemies is symptomatic of a mental disorder. In the Kuzari, Judah Halevi quotes King David: “I hate them, O God, that hate youâ€� (Psalms 129:21). The haters of God, the Kuzari explains, refers to “those who hate God’s people, God’s covenant, or God’s Torah …â€� Hatred, however, is futile if it doesn’t issue in action. In Psalms 18:38-43, Israel’s greatest king writes: “I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and returned not until they were destroyed. I crushed them so that they are not able to rise; ... I pulverized them like dust in the face of the storm...â€� The Jewish Sages teach: “There is a time to kill, in the time of war, and a time to heal, in the time of peace.… There is a time to love, in the time of peace, and a time to hate, in the time of warâ€� (Kohelet Rabbah 3:1).  Consider the verse, “When you go forth to battle against your enemiesâ€� (Deut. 20:1). The Sages ask: “What is meant by ‘against your enemies’â€�? They answer: “God said, ‘Confront them as enemies. Just as they show you no mercy, so should you not show them any mercy’â€� (Tanchuma, Shoftim 15). Israel’s ruling elites have ignored this teaching, in consequence of which the Jew-hating Muslims of the Palestinian Authority have murdered or mutilated thousands of Jewish women, men, and children. Because Israel does not hate her Muslim enemies, she has been in retreat and will continue to retreat until retreat is no longer possible. Will America continue to ignore the challenge posed by Islamic hate? 

British Methodists: Palestine First, Germany Next? by Malcolm LoweJune 13, 2011 at 5:00 am

In 2010, the Methodist Church in Britain produced a report entitled "Justice for Palestine and Israel". The report was adopted as official Methodist policy. Consequently, British Methodists are now called upon to boycott certain Israeli products and support the pro-Palestinian initiatives of the World Council of Churches and Christian Aid.We have looked at this report, which relies heavily upon a purported history of Palestine in the twentieth century, supported by a bibliography that makes no pretense to impartiality. Anyone who has any genuine acquaintance of that history will be amazed at the continual misrepresentations. In particular, the report repeatedly uses statistics that will mislead an unknowing reader. The report is not the first example of this genre of semi-fact, but perhaps it is the greatest masterpiece to date.Some time ago, we reviewed a miniature product of the genre in our exposé of the Myth of Palestinian Christianity. To do the same for the Methodist report would require a substantial monograph, not a mere article. Moreover, the task would be a waste of time, since such a report can hardly have come from people who might be prepared to change their minds.But if the British Methodists ever show interest in salvaging their reputation, they should engage a respectable historian (say Benny Morris) to review the report and list its falsities. Moreover, they should pay that historian handsomely for the mental torture involved. Cheaper and more befitting a Christian institution would be to throw it officially into the waste-paper basket. If that sounds exaggerated, consider just a sample of the report's statements.Of the Arab revolt (1936-1939), the report says that it "was put down with brutal ferocity by British forces during which 5000 Palestinians were killed and 10,000 wounded". Not mentioned is that up to half of the fatalities were Arabs killed by other Arabs on various pretexts. This includes the fighting between the Husseini and Nashashibi clans, in which the Nashashibi leadership was largely wiped out. Jewish casualties are not mentioned at all.Similar omissions occur where the report mentions the first Palestinian intifada. It is described in this sentence: "This Intifada, which lasted from 1987 to 1991, was mainly associated with stone throwing and popular unrest within the Occupied territories, together with a corresponding firm response by Israeli forces."Not mentioned is that as many Arabs were killed by other Arabs as by Israelis, on various accusations of being collaborators and prostitutes, etc. The PLO and Hamas also ordered the resignation of the entire local Jordanian-created police, which Israel had left in place since 1967. As a result, crime multiplied without control and various Palestinian organizations could rob the population in the name of resistance. Those organizations also ordered endless strikes that deprived the middle classes of income. A lot more happened than mere stone throwing.The 1947 resolution of the United Nations General Assembly is described as a plan "to partition the territory, with 56% going to the third of the population who were Jewish." Sounds very unfair, if you do not know that 82% of the Jewish part was the Negev desert. Its then population, apart from Beersheba (6,490) and 510 in Jewish villages, consisted of uncounted Bedouin nomads. It was allocated to the Jews on the assumption that they alone might make it less of a desert, as indeed happened.The UN plan, continues the report, "ignited a civil war" in which "750,000 Palestinians" were "forced from their country." Here the report is guilty of the most elementary of mistakes, or rather deceptions: equating the total number of refugees with the number that left the area of the British Mandate. In fact, it is estimated that about a third went to the West Bank, a third went to the Gaza Strip and only a third actually went away "from their country" to Lebanon, Syria or Transjordan. Two-thirds, that is, of the Arab refugees were displaced not from Mandatory Palestine but merely within it. The Jordanians and Egyptians put them in refugee camps; the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, too, keep them in those same camps.Thus, adds the report, "Israel secured its independence on 78% of the territory, having expelled around 80% of the Arab population." Only it omits to note that 100% of the Jewish population was expelled from the areas that came under Jordanian and Egyptian rule. As for the 78%, three-fifths of it (4,700 out of 8,019 sq miles) was the Negev desert. Once again, the percentages mentioned by the report serve to deceive rather than to inform.The description of the origins of the Six Day War is even more laconic: "tensions culminated in the Six Day War in which Israel fought against Egypt, Jordan and Syria." In fact, the first belligerent act was committed by Egypt, when Nasser ordered a blockade of the Israeli port of Eilat and told the UN buffer force to leave the border between Egypt and Israel. It was also Jordan that initiated hostilities against Israel, not the reverse. So it was Egypt and Jordan who made war on Israel, who lost, and who thereby gave Israel control of the West Bank and Gaza. The Arab League, meeting in Khartoum on September 1, 1967, thereupon adopted its "Three 'No's": "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel."Thus the "Occupied Territories" were born in a war of Arab aggression, after which the Arabs refused to make peace because they refused to accept Israel in any form. That was the permanent reality in which Israel was left to decide alone what areas were necessary for its long-term security and began to settle them. Not that the Methodists would tell you.Of the origins of the PLO, the report merely declares: "In 1964, the Palestinians finally achieved an independent political voice, through the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization." No mention of the fact that the PLO adopted a charter calling for the destruction of the State of Israel by armed force, etc. This was before the Six Day War, when all that prevented the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza was Arab opposition.The opposition included the PLO itself, since thePLO charter of 1964 stated: "Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area..." Israel alone must be the target. Only after the war, in 1968, did the PLO revised the charter to eliminate that restriction. Indeed, the Methodist report contains no explanation whatsoever of the Fatah and Hamas ideologies, nor of the constant incitement against Israel today in the Palestinian media and educational system.And so on and so on. Now, we are familiar with this sort of repetitive deception from banal Palestinian propaganda. But what is left of the reputation of a church that adopts such a strategy?So let us go on to a further example of the elementary statistical blunders: "There are currently around 125,000 Palestinian Christians in Israel/Palestine." Here they may be quoting a figure recently given by Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics of 122,000 Arab Christians in Israel, including Jerusalem. But they forget that there are another 40,000 or so Arab Christians in the West Bank and a few in Gaza. Add to that some tens of thousands, at least, of non-Arab Christians in Israel.This invalidates the report's central claim that there are "declining numbers" of Christians in "Israel/Palestine." In fact, their numbers have slowly but steadily increased since 1948. It is simply their percentage in the total population that has decreased; for the details see my Myth of Palestinian Christianity. Thus the Methodist report not merely repeats the frequent confusion between absolute numbers and percentages, it sloppily fails to get the absolute number correct in the first place.Note that the great majority of the Arab Christians live in Israel. From there, during 1948-1967, the Jordanians rarely let them visit the holy places in Jerusalem. After 1967, they could go there whenever they wanted to. But what did the Six Day War mean for Christians, according to the Methodist report? "To Christians, the loss of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was of great significance."Think, Methodists, what you mean by that. Christians have "lost" the Holy Sepulchre, which is visited by thousands upon thousands of Christians every day? Well, the Holy Sepulchre is technically owned by the Muslim Waqf, while the local churches have to request the key from two Muslim families in order to open the door – and pay for the privilege. But in that sense the Holy Sepulchre was "lost" centuries ago. Some Christians might call it a demeaning and intolerable situation, but not our Methodists.As for the Muslims themselves, the report complains that "Muslims lost de facto control of their third holiest Mosque – the Al Aqsa Mosque – as well as the Dome of the Rock or Haram-al Sharif." Here the Methodists show that, without any examination of the facts, they are merely capable of making baseless pronouncements of politico-theological dogma.After the Six Day War, the Muslim Waqf was immediately permitted by Israel to retain its control of the Temple Mount, while Jews were forbidden to pray there. The problem is the very opposite: the State of Israel has been far too hesitant to exercise any authority there, despite grossly irresponsible activities of the Waqf. The Israeli police is satisfied if it can prevent rioting on the Temple Mount and the hurling of rocks from there on Jews down below at the Western Wall. And that is all.In particular, the Waqf has carried out unauthorized and unsupervised excavations in order to add a third mosque underground. This cultural vandalism also dangerously weakened the support walls of the Temple Mount. The excavated material was dumped outside in the Kidron valley, where the Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkay belatedly rescued 400 lorry loads of it. He is supervising a multi-year project to sift through it all. Extremely valuable artefacts going back to the First Temple period have emerged.The Waqf cares nothing for this, since it claims that any talk of a Jewish temple there is a Zionist fabrication; this is a purely Muslim site. Such claims belie the New Testament along with the Old Testament, since Jesus and the apostles are often described as visiting the Temple. But the Methodists ignore those Muslim claims that their Bible is replete with lies.The report has a section bemoaning "The Plight of Palestinian Israelis." Among its complaints is that "despite being 20% of the population, only 3.5% of Israeli land is in Arab-Palestinian ownership." What it does not mention is that only about 7% of Israeli land altogether is in private ownership. This is yet another item of statistical trickery that features widely in Palestinian propaganda, but disgraces a church that employs it.The issue is rather who can live on state land. Alandmark decision of Israel's Supreme Court in 2000 cemented the principle that state land must be available to all citizens. The petitioners, the Kadaan family, moved into their newly-built house in Katzir in December 2010. This is an issue on which the last word has not been said, yet it has involved hypocrisy that was not limited to Jewish right-wingers.Nothing would rouse greater fury in the Israeli Arab sector than a concerted attempt by Jews to buy up houses in Arab villages. Last year, a Jew who bought a house in the Arab village of Ibillin was forced to leave within days after neighbours openly threatened to kill him. Here, by the way, is where the much celebrated Elias Chacour made his name. His intervention would have been appreciated.There is just one village in Galilee, Peki'in, where for centuries Jews lived alongside Druze and Christian Arabs. In recent years, however, Arab gangs harassed the Jewish families and all the last Jews were driven out in 2007 except for one lady who looks after the synagogue. Basically, it is impossible for Jews to live in an Arab village in Israel.In its call for boycotts of Israel, the report relies heavily upon the so-called Kairos Palestine Document, which it recommends to all Methodists as coming from "church leaders in Palestine." But apart from Bishop Munib Younan, who subsequently withdrew his signature, the listed authors of the document are a group of minor figures, dissidents and retirees. Note also that one of the authors, Rifat Odeh Kassis, has made it clear that the document does not claim that the Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem support boycotts.We have exposed the real agenda of the document elsewhere. It has also been severely criticised by a number of leading German theologians, including Rolf Schieder (Neukirchener Theologische Zeitschrift 25/2, 2010, pp. 191-194), Michael Volkmann (also in English) and Klaus Wengst (lecture in Bonn on May 13, 2011). Methodist theology must be at a low ebb in the UK if this sort of material is its staple.We shall omit the further litany of complaints against Israel (with a couple of token mentions of Palestinian terrorism). They use the familiar propaganda trick of describing incidents without any mention of context. Nor shall we review the long list of variously absurd demands made of Israel, nor the calls upon Methodists to act to enforce those demands. Thus the Methodists uphold "the rights of the refugees," that is, the "right" of the Palestinians to create an Arab majority in the State of Israel. As we said, the Methodists should pay someone to clean up the mess.What we can do, instead, is reveal a possible scoop. Some gullible Methodists, it is rumored, have begun to review all that they thought they knew about another aspect of twentieth-century history. What looks like an early draft of their conclusions follows. It will be seen how the one "history" has become a pattern for the other.Proposed Conference Report: Justice for Germany and BritainFollowing the adoption of the Methodist Conference Report on Justice for Palestine and Israel, we carefully studied the literature appended to the report. This led us to authors who alerted us to the problem of justice for Germany and Britain.Eventually, we were able to put together a team of experts on Occupied Germany. We urge Methodists to take their findings as seriously as that report on Occupied Palestine. What we have learnt contradicts all that we thought we knew. But, as the earlier report stressed, "Public awareness of what is actually happening in Israel/Palestine is largely lacking" and the same applies to Germany/Britain. Here, too, your local church can make a difference.During 1914-1918, the nationalistic government of France fought against Germany with the aim of acquiring the German provinces of Elsass and Lothringen. (Clarification: just as Israel insists on calling the West Bank "Judea and Samaria", the French call these "Alsace et Lorraine".) They persuaded the Russian and British monarchs to join this campaign, although neither had suffered any grievance at German hands.Germany held its own against France and Britain. It also enabled Russia to depose its tyrannical ruler and introduce democracy, whereupon Russia made peace. But the Western allies persuaded US President Woodrow Wilson to join the war, which is how Germany was defeated despite stubborn resistance. That the American people had been unwillingly dragged into this conflict was quickly shown: the US Senate rejected Wilson's scheme to give permanent status to the League of Nations that had subjugated Germany.Not only did France succeed in occupying Elsass and Lothringen; a large part of Germany territory was used to recreate the long-forgotten country of Poland. Germany was also ordered to pay money annually to the victors and forbidden to have an army.By the early 1930s, Germany was in grave economic troubles until the 1933 elections brought a little-known politician, Adolf Hitler, to power. Like his Palestinian contemporary, Haj Amin al-Husseini (an uncle of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat), Hitler realised that economic problems arise when industry and finance lie in the hands of people of foreign origin. He persuaded many of the foreigners to leave, even allowing them to take some of their capital with them. Germany's economy quickly improved. Hitler also pioneered the building of motorways and initiated a project to enable every German family to have a "Volkswagen" (people's car).Unfortunately, some of those non-Germans went to Palestine, where they played a major role in the Israeli occupation of that country (see the earlier report for details). Collaboration between Britain and those settlers in Palestine forced al-Husseini himself to become a refugee in Germany. Here he later provided advice for Hitler's attempts to encourage similar reforms among Germany's neighbours.Hitler quickly managed to persuade Germany's former enemies to restore parts of occupied German territory peacefully, such as the Saar and the Sudeten lands. But when he raised the issue of the artificial creation of Poland on German territory, Germany was subject to a second unprovoked attack by France and Britain. This, although Hitler had not even questioned France's illegal occupation of Elsass and Lothringen.Once again, Germany was able to hold off their attack, but again the aggressors succeeded in persuading Russia and the USA to join the war. This time the war ended with Germany under total occupation. More Germany territory was added to Poland, Germans were expelled and Polish settlers put in their place. Also East Prussia was given to Russia and subjected to the same mistreatment. The Sudeten lands were reoccupied and Germans expelled from there too.Having learnt this history, your report team decided to sponsor volunteers on the programme of the WCAC (World Committee of Aryan Christians) called EAPGB (Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Germany and Britain). When our volunteers compared notes with people who had been on the WCC (World Council of Churches) programme EAPPI (Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel), they found a situation even worse than the misery of the Israeli occupation.In Bethlehem, the WCC's Ecumenical Accompaniers could still find a few Palestinian Christians. In Hebron there were at least some remaining Palestinian Muslims. The only Christian in Hebron, a Russian monk, has not been joined by his colleagues and will not be until Palestinian Christians are allowed back by the occupation authorities.But when our Ecumenical Accompaniers went to Breslau, Stettin and Danzig (which the Polish settlers have renamed Wroclaw, Szczecin and Gdansk), they could not find a single survivor of the native German population. In one sad case, a group of German visitors in traditional dress (brown shirts and short leather trousers) staged a peaceful protest by raising a German flag and singing a German folksong called "Horst-Wessel-Lied". They were brutally assaulted by the settlers, arrested by the occupation police and sent back to Western Germany under armed guard. Besides those cities, by the way, thousands of former German villages have vanished (far more than the vanished Arab villages in Israel).As for Russian-occupied Königsberg, the hometown of the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant, what happened to our Ecumenical Accompaniers in that city is too undignified to be described here. It makes even the Israeli occupation army look benign by comparison.Consequently, we have some recommendations for the next Methodist Conference. For one, we urge Methodists to join the EAPGB program. Please note that just as the EAPPI includes Ecumenical Accompaniers who encourage Israeli peace activists, so also you can join EAPGB and work in Britain itself with British peace activists who are seeking justice for Occupied Germany. Since Christian Aid, for operational reasons, is not active in Occupied Germany, we are looking for a replacement with WCAC help.Second, in those parts of Germany where the allied occupation has officially been withdrawn, on the model of the so-called Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, there are popular relief organizations called Landsmannschaften. These try to keep alive the memories of German refugees from the areas under continuing Polish, Russian and Czech occupation. Unlike the Palestinian refugees, all the German refugees were quickly resettled in new homes and many have since become economically well off. The result is that the Landsmannschaften have been languishing. Methodists can help to revive them by solidarity visits and church collections to replenish their funding.Third, we recommend a boycott of all British supermarkets that are not owned by Germans (please note that only two German-owned chains, Aldi and Lidl, have been allowed to operate in Britain). This corresponds to our awareness that some businesses in Israel are owned by Palestinians and must be seen as tacit exceptions to any boycott of Israel.The boycott of Britain should continue until the government of this country takes decisive steps to end the occupation of Germany. Here we should follow the example of Israelis who bravely boycott their own occupation of Palestine (on this, too, see the earlier report). It explains why we call this "Justice for Germany and Britain", because the British in their own way suffer from the occupation alongside the Germans.At present, we admit that this sounds a daunting task. But that is what the EAPPI scheme was thought to be at first, whereas now the sale of Israeli cosmetics in Britain has been partly stopped. For sure, in Ramallah the native Palestinians, who are not yet free from the occupation mentality, are still buying the same cosmetics in greater quantities.We are in the process of completing a recommended bibliography and a catalogue of the websites that seek to remedy the injustices done to Germany. In the meantime, see the organizations mentioned in the online encyclopaedia article on The Post-World War II Heritage of Adolf Hitler.– Your report team.

Another Tack: To the shores of Tripoli

-------- Begin forwarded message --------
Subject: Another Tack: To the shores of Tripoli (Sarah Honig)
Date: 9/20/12 4:11:39 PM
From: "Robert Robert Hand"
To: borntolose3@...




Another Tack: To the shores of Tripoli
Posted on September 20, 2012 by Sarah Honig

It is written in the Koran that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet are sinners, whom it is the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every Muslim who is slain in this warfare is sure to go to Paradise.



Difficult as it may be for some New York Times devotees to believe, the above wasn’t enunciated in response to an esoteric 14-minute YouTube clip, which was uploaded months ago by a California-resident Egyptian Copt, which few actually viewed but which invisible Islamic puppet-masters belatedly decried as too offensive to overlook.

The above quote dates back to 1785 but it undeniably bloviates in precisely the same spirit as latter-day Muslim rabble-rousers. Nothing has changed since these supremacist sentiments were sounded to American emissaries Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who were dispatched to London in an attempt to reason with the proto-al-Qaida leaders of their day.

Suffice it to say that the negotiations led nowhere. What the two future American presidents – both Founding Fathers with the impeccable credentials of enlightened political philosophers – would hear was that Muslims are above accommodating themselves to lowly infidels and that the infidels had better admit their inferiority and pay the obligatory penalty for being inferior.

In time, this standoff would escalate to what became known as the First Barbary War. It marked the first occasion ever that America employed military force overseas as an independent republic. The military reputation of the newly autonomous upstart from across the Atlantic was beginning to be established. America’s ability to strike far from home was tested for the first time. It was also the first time a united American force was deployed as distinct from a collection of local militias.

This chapter in American annals was seminal enough to be immortalized in the official hymn of the American Marine Corps via the phrase “to the shores of Tripoli.â€

Few Americans today have an iota of non-romanticized inkling about their own country’s beginnings, never mind the realization that the first foreign war the US fought was with Muslims. Such ignorance is a great shame for the country which still purports to lead the Free World. But worse yet is the suspicion that America’s current commander-in- chief, Barack Obama – the latest to don the mantle of both Adams and Jefferson – has no idea.

Another option is that he does have an idea but pretends not to. It’s hard to decide which is worse – a president who is uninformed or disingenuous. Perhaps Obama just doesn’t care. Graver yet, he might care in an alarming way – he may be willfully hostile to the legacy of American history. Any way you look at it, none of this can instill cheer in the hearts of Americans or of those who continue to count on America.

From this history-deficient worldview springs the politically correct rationalization about why assorted Muslim fanatics have taken to the streets of far-flung cities to vent hate. Like an imperious choirmaster, the Obama administration inculcates into the public’s mind the convenient pretext that an inane YouTube clip could automatically trigger the uncontrollable fury of the mobs.

To hear Obama’s mouthpieces, the to-be-expected reaction of the faithful is to riot against diplomatic sanctuaries (of different nations), despoil foreign-franchised eateries and obviously – it goes without saying – hoarsely recommend the slaughter of all Jews everywhere.

The impression willy-nilly imparted by this neat explanation is that there was a specific match which ignited the flame, that the consequences might have been avoided had the match not been struck and had we Westerners been a tad more considerate of the noble sensitivities of our Muslim brethren.

The implication is unfailingly that only Muslims possess the prerogative to be sensitive and to express their sensitivities brutally. Say it how you will, the unspoken axiom is that even a perceived affront against Islam sets loose the wrath of hell.

On the other hand, Muslims may call Jews descendents of apes and pigs but Jews are never expected to respond ferociously because, as Muhammadan believers aver, the lowly Jews are indeed swine and hence fully deserve all the scorn heaped upon them. Jews have no right to rage right back (not that they ever do).

The justifiably proud Muslims are in contrast perfect (which is what the appellation Muslim means in Arabic) and thus are worthy of veneration. Anything less is a severe insult that must be avenged. The very notion of coexistence is nonexistent for those who see any hint of a hint of a non-adulatory appraisal as extreme sacrilege mandating the death sentence. Simply put, the Muslim view is “we are the best, you are the worst.â€

All our Western notions of live-and-let-live might as well come from an alternative universe. They are irrelevant, which is why Obama erred so fundamentally when apologizing to Islam and bowing down to its potentates.

This is where memory blanks come in handy. They help cover up the fact that the video clip is a trite excuse – that we have heard it all before – with the Danish political caricature six years ago, with Salman Rushdie’s novel over 20 years ago, with Jerusalem mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini’s pogrom-instigating calumnies from the 1920s onward or the license which North African Muslims issued themselves to abduct foreign mariners and hold them for ransom hundreds of years ago.

All these are links in one long chain.

The Barbary Coast – as it was known in the 18th century – was straddled by the independent Sultanate of Morocco and the quasi-independent states surrounding Tripoli, Tunis and Algiers, under the minimally nominal hegemony of the Ottoman Empire. All were in the business of piracy. They hijacked merchant ships throughout the Mediterranean and in parts of the Atlantic and held their crews in abject misery, in conditions of hard labor and privation, until ransomed.

The Muslim leaders of these provinces amassed great wealth and power thereby. Before independence, American shipping came under British protection and during the Revolutionary War under that of the French. Thereafter, however, beginning in 1784, the Barbary rulers focused on American vessels.

Attempts to negotiate the price of safe passage succeeded only partially and temporarily. The ante kept going up to the point that each honcho demanded hefty chunks of the entire American budget.

By the time Jefferson became America’s third president, things had deteriorated into bloody skirmishes and spawned an American naval blockade.

Then Tripoli captured the USS Philadelphia. On the night of February 16, 1804, Lt. Stephen Decatur commanded an undersized contingent of American Marines who stormed the captive Philadelphia and set it ablaze. British Admiral Horatio Nelson lauded this as “the most bold and daring act of the age.â€

But there was more to come. Tripoli itself was attacked a few months later and more months down the line the city of Derna, in Tripoli’s sphere, fell to a force of Marines and a ragtag hodgepodge of mercenaries. An American flag was hoisted victoriously abroad for the first time in what we now dub Libya.

It all concluded in a compromise which the Muslim princes violated in no time, especially once America became embroiled in its existential War of 1812. Not until the 1815 Second Barbary War did the US successfully halt the extortions and end all tribute payments.

There must be a lesson here for today’s pampered, more powerful and less imperiled America. No good will come of sucking up to those who believe they have the only direct line to the Almighty, and were ordained by Allah to lord it over the rest of us underlings, menacingly extract submission but dish out contempt with impunity.

Powwowing won’t lead to a change of heart among Islam’s supremacists. The showdown is inevitable. The Barbary War’s rallying call was: “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.â€

Two footnotes offer further insights.

The first goes to underscore the difference of mindsets between the enlightened West and Islam already 227 years ago. While Adams’s and Jefferson’s interlocutor justified murder and pillage as the inherent right of the superior Muslim, Jefferson was the principal author of the trailblazing American Declaration of Independence and in his later life composed an alternative Bible called The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.

Jefferson transposed and deleted portions of the New Testament (mainly those with supernatural content which he argued were the personal conjectures and/or embellishments of the Four Evangelists) in order to reconstruct what he presented as a rational and more reliable account of the life of Jesus.

Religious as America was, no violent vendettas were mounted against Jefferson by offended Christians. Unlike the rampaging Muslims, they made do with disagreeing.

The second footnote is about Joseph Israel. This Jewish midshipman was killed on September 4, 1804, in Tripoli Harbor. An ornate monument was erected in his memory and that of the five other fallen of that battle. One of America’s oldest military monuments, it stands today at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis.

In 1918, the American Navy launched a destroyer that honored his heroism. It sailed the seas as the USS Israel. It was the only instance in which a US naval vessel bore the name.