An article on Israelis and Palestinians from a different point of view

Every so often friends send me articles on Israel and the Palestinians. I am very glad they do, I would not be able to keep up with everything that is going on in that part of the world if they did not. I can always go over to the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and read one-sided information. And some of that is helpful, but it is one-sided and sometimes because of the complex issues untrue.

One article that was sent me was a pleasure to read. It told two sides, but also it is engaging because of its descriptive language, the author’s obvious love of people and his sense of integrity toward the people he writes about. He does not give out information that would put people in harm’s way. The article is “Lattes, beach barbecues (and dodging missiles) in the world's biggest prison camp.”

The author, Peter Hitchens, has written the article for Mail Online. Here are some excerpts from the article. The first is about how complicated the issues are:

There are dispiriting slums that should have been cleared decades ago, people living on the edge of subsistence. There is danger. And most of the people cannot get out.

But it is a lot more complicated, and a lot more interesting, than that. In fact, the true state of the Gaza Strip, and of the West Bank of the Jordan, is so full of paradoxes and surprises that most news coverage of the Middle East finds it easier to concentrate on the obvious, and leave out the awkward bits.

Which is why, in my view, politicians and public alike have been herded down a dead end that serves only propagandists and cynics, and leaves the people of this beautiful, important part of the world suffering needlessly.

For instance, our Prime Minister, David Cameron, recently fawned on his Islamist hosts in Turkey by stating Gaza was a 'prison camp'. This phrase is the official line of the well-funded Arab and Muslim lobby, who want to make sure Israel is seen by the world as a villainous oppressor.

Well, Israeli soldiers can and do act with crude brutality. Israeli settlers can and do steal Arab water and drive Arabs off their land. Israeli politicians are often coarse and insensitive.

The treatment of Israel's Arab citizens is one of the great missed opportunities of history, needlessly mean and short-sighted. The seizure of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 were blunders, made worse by later folly.

But if you think Israel is the only problem, or that Israelis are the only oppressors hereabouts, think again. Realise, for a start, that Israel no longer rules Gaza. Its settlements are ruins.

No Israelis can be found inside its borders. And, before you say 'but Israel controls the Gaza border', look at a map. The strip's southern frontier – almost as hard to cross as the Israeli boundary – is with Egypt. And Cairo is as anxious as Israel to seal in the Muslim militants of Hamas.

Gaza was bombed on the day I arrived in retaliation for a series of rocket strikes on Israel, made by Arab militants. Those militants knew this would happen, but they launched their rockets anyway. Many Gazans hate them for this.

And then there is this about the refuges:

What about Gaza's 'refugee camps'. The expression is misleading. Most of those who live in them are not refugees, but the children and grandchildren of those who fled Israel in the war of 1948.

All the other refugees from that era – in India and Pakistan, the Germans driven from Poland and the Czech lands, not to mention the Jews expelled from the Arab world – were long ago resettled.

Unbelievably, these people are still stuck in insanitary townships, hostages in a vast struggle kept going by politicians who claim to care about them. These places are not much different from the poorer urban districts of Cairo, about which nobody, in the Arab world or the West, has much to say.

It is not idle to say that these 'camps' should have been pulled down years ago, and their inhabitants rehoused. It can be done. The United Arab Emirates, to their lasting credit, have paid for a smart new housing estate with a view of the Mediterranean.

It shows what could happen if the Arab world cared as much as it says it does about Gaza. Everyone in Gaza could live in such places, at a cost that would be no more than small change in the oil-rich Arab world's pocket.

But the propagandists, who insist that one day the refugees will return to their lost homes, regard such improvements as acceptance that Israel is permanent – and so they prefer the squalor, for other people.

And just one more thing about Christians:

One – which I feel all of us should be aware of – is the plight of Christian Arabs under the rule of the Palestinian Authority. More than once I heard them say: 'Life was better for us under Israeli rule.'

One young man, lamenting the refusal of the Muslim-dominated courts to help him in a property dispute with squatters, burst out: 'We are so alone! All of us Christians feel so lonely in this country.'

This conversation took place about a mile from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where tourists are given the impression that the Christian religion is respected. Not really.

I was told, in whispers, of the unprintable desecration of this shrine by Palestinian gunmen when they seized the church in 2002 – 'world opinion' was exclusively directed against Israel. I will not name the people who told me these things.

I have also decided not to name another leading Christian Arab who told me of how his efforts to maintain Christian culture in the West Bank had met with official thuggery and intimidation.

Oh and the descriptive language:

Human beings will always strive for some sort of normal life. They do this even when bombs are falling and demagogues raging. Even when, as in Gaza, there is no way out and morality patrols sweep through restaurants in search of illicit beer and women smoking in public or otherwise affronting the 14th Century values of Hamas.

So I won't give the name of the rather pleasant establishment where young women, Islamic butterflies mocking the fanatics' strict dress code with bright make-up and colourful silken hijabs, chattered as they inhaled apple-scented smoke from their water-pipes.

Their menfolk, nearby, watched football on huge, flat-screen televisions. Nor will I say where I saw the Gazan young gathering for beach barbecues beneath palm-leaf umbrellas.

This is an excellent article with pictures and map—please read the rest: “Lattes, beach barbecues (and dodging missiles) in the world's biggest prison camp.”

Hat Tip to Drs KC & DW

Dr. Tawfik Hamid, a former radical Muslim who now teaches the reform of Islam

Over thirty years ago I experienced a young Egyptian man in my home ranting against the Jewish people and the State of Israel. He was an overnight guest, I had fed him dinner and breakfast, and yet he stood in my kitchen telling me he would like to line the Israelis up and shoot all of them. He would later kidnap his young son taking him to Egypt as a means of forcing his estranged American wife to come to him. He took away her official papers and held her against her will in Egypt. She had one more son, and then finally on a return trip to the United States she was able to secure her and her son's freedom.

I do not know what happened to him but I recently saw a story about an Egyptian Islamic man who overcame his radical bent and now is promoting a moderate Islam. He is attempting to reform Islam. And he has some good things to say about Israel.

On his web site Dr. Tawfik Hamid, who is Muslim, shows true integrity. The biography on his first page begins:

“Dr. Tawfik Hamid (aka Tarek Abdelhamid), is an Islamic thinker and reformer, and one time Islamic extremist from Egypt. He was a member of a terrorist Islamic organization JI with Dr. Ayman Al-Zawaherri who became later on the second in command of Al-Qaeda. Some twenty-five years ago, he recognized the threat of Radical Islam and the need for a reformation based upon modern peaceful interpretations of classical Islamic core texts.”

There are several interesting areas on this site, including a test to tell if someone or an organization is radical. Also there are several videos including two videos of Hamid talking to the European Parliament about Hamas.

On YouTube there is a video of his testimony just recently placed there:

News as Propaganda: about Israel, the Islamic Movement & the IPMN

On October the 13th I posted an article, Bad links posted at Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. The next day I posted, More on the bad links that the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) posted but by a different author which was a link to an excellent article at Camera.

The article, Presbyterian Peacemakers Promote Hezbollah Website and Anti-Israel Incitement was written by Dexter Van Zile. He hones in on the false rumors being pushed by various Islamic sects, as well as the IPMN, that Israel is trying to take over the Haram Al-Sharif Mosque.

There were also rumors that the Israeli government was trying to burrow under the Aqsa Mosque at the Temple Mount which would destroy it. And in fact one of the articles that IPMN linked to is Al-Aqsa Foundation: A New Israeli Tunnel Built under the Aqsa Mosque. The article is at The Voice of Palestine online news.

That particular article stated that “Al-Aqsa foundation for endowment and heritage revealed that the Israeli occupation authorities almost finished the building of a new tunnel under the Aqsa Mosque.”

However, in contradiction to the Palestine and IPMN reports CHURCHandWORLD, yesterday, linked to a news article from Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com, entitled, “Israel Plans Major Excavation at Western Wall,” by Samuel Sokol.

As the article points out there is an excavation going on, but not under the Aqsa Mosque. Instead it is directly under the Western Wall in order to “create an archaeological park directly underneath the area where worshippers currently stand while praying at the Kotel.” Also, “The current prayer area will remain open, supported by pillars, while a new area will be added underneath, at the level at which worshippers at the ancient Temple stood in the past.”

Sokol goes on to write that, “engineers working on the excavations explained ‘Israel's excavations do not cause harm to structures in the area.’ In fact, they explained, the excavations have improved structural stability in the Temple Mount area, as they led to discovery and strengthening of areas in which there was a danger of collapse.”

And yet several radical Islamic groups are still using rumors to incite violence and war within Jerusalem. In fact on the same Palestinian online news group that IPMN was linked to earlier , an article was added on the 25th entitled, “Hamas: The battle of Jerusalem started.” Right above the article is a picture of the Mosque and a supposed dig right beneath it. The focus of the article is that there is now nothing left for the Palestinians but to enter into war within Jerusalem against the Israelis. One paragraph states:

“For his part, Sheikh Hamed Al-Beitawi, a representative of Hamas in the Palestinian legislative council (PLC), warned the Israeli occupation of persisting in its violations against the occupied city of Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque, stressing that Israel opened the gates of hell when it dared to attack the Aqsa Mosque.”

Much of the unrest is being pushed by the Islamic Movement in Israel. The Movement is a radical party that has its roots in the past with connections to the “Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin Al-Husseini and the Muslim Brotherhood.” The Muslim Brotherhood is a radical branch of Islam which has several political parties connected to it including Hamas. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem befriended Hitler and had plans for a final solution of the Jews in the Middle East which was curtailed by the end of the war.

The Islamic Movement is an international movement and on their site in Nigeria one can read about the problems in Israel, from the Islamic Movement’s point of view of course. One can also find links to Hezbollah, etc., etc.

My point here after traveling this far through links and sites and misleading stories is that the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the PCUSA is reaching into areas that are extremely radical. As I look at the sites and news articles I think I can understand a Christian group supposedly involved in mission wanting to reach these people for Jesus Christ. But no, IPMN only wants to reaffirm these groups radical thought and are undoubtedly unknowingly affirming their incitement to violence. I can only wish and pray that my denomination would drop its link to IPMN.

Three articles on Israel for those who care about Israel

Three articles in the Jerusalem Post I find are relevant to several discussions that have occurred concerning Israel and the Middle East on this blog. The first one is more than six months old but perhaps the most relevant. It is "Law professor: Hamas is a war crimes 'case study'" written by Haviv Rettig Gur. The law professor is "Irwin Cotler - a former Canadian justice minister, MP and law professor at Montreal's McGill University."

The article begins:

"The fighting tactics and ideology of Hamas are a "case study par excellence" of a systematic violation of international humanitarian law, according to a leading expert in international law who visited the Gaza periphery region on Tuesday.

There is "almost no comparable example" anywhere in today's world of a group that so systematically violates international agreements related to armed conflict, Irwin Cotler - a former Canadian justice minister, MP and law professor at Montreal's McGill University - told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Hamas is committing at least six violations of international law, Cotler explained.
"First, the deliberate targeting of civilians is in and of itself a war crime," he noted, referring to the Hamas rockets fired at southern towns for eight years. "

The second article is several days old and is titled "Diplomacy: Israel vs. Human Rights Watch." It is written by Herb Keinon. The article begins:

"A group of Soviet dissidents gathered in a Moscow apartment nearly 35 years ago and courageously formed the Moscow Helsinki group, with the aim of monitoring how the Soviet Union was living up to the human rights component of the 1975 Helsinki Accords that dealt with ways to improve ties between the communist bloc and the West.

One of those involved was Natan Sharansky. Using this group as a model, Helsinki Watch, an NGO founded largely by Robert Bernstein, an American Jew concerned with human rights, was established soon after, also as a way to monitor Soviet compliance. In the intervening 31 years, Helsinki Watch has morphed into Human Rights Watch (HRW), a mammoth human rights NGO that went to Saudi Arabia in May and used its work castigating Israel as a way to solicit funds in one of the world's worst human rights violators.

That transformation, at least for Sharansky, is simply too much."

The third article was published today, July 19, and is very important if the writer's assessment is true. Barry Rubin has written an article explaining how events are causing the right and left in Israel to come to an agreement on exactly what Israel will and will not agree to concerning the Palestinians and peace in the Middle East.

The article, "The Region: Israel's new national consensus," begins:

"This could be the most important article I write this year. Israel has entered a new era of thinking and policy in which old categories of Left or Right, hawk or dove are irrelevant under a national unity government bringing together the two main ruling parties.

How did this new paradigm arise? Between 1948 and 1992, the consensus was that the PLO and most Arab states want to destroy Israel. When - or if - the day comes that they're ready to negotiate seriously we'll see what happens.

Then came the Oslo agreement and a huge shift. The governing view was that maybe the Palestinians and Arab states learned the cost of their intransigence enough to make peace possible. The Left thought a deal could bring real peace; the Right thought it was a trick leading to another stage of conflict on terms less favorable to Israel. But both expected a deal to materialize.

The year 2000, the Camp David failure, the Syrian and Palestinian rejection of generous offers and the second intifada destroyed illusions.

Since then, the country has groped for a new paradigm. Prime minister Ariel Sharon offered unilateralism; prime minister Ehud Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni constantly offered more in exchange for nothing. But the more they did so, the more international abuse Israel received.

NOW A NEW approach has finally emerged capable of reversing this situation. .."

If you are interested in the future of Israel these are important posts to read.