Israel's Jewish Character-should Presbyterians be debating that?

Whoever puts the links up for the Israel Palestine Mission Network on Facebook has linked to a Huffington post, “Israel's Jewish Character Is Subject for Debate.” [1] The article is by Ahmed Moor a Palestinian freelance journalist. The sad part about this is not the Palestinian writer. He has his opinions. It is rather the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s IPMN’s comments to their link.

“Is what this article says really that controversial?” they ask. So what does the author of the article say? He insists that the state of Israel should not be a Jewish state and he also insists that the problems should be solved by a one state solution. But for a PCUSA organization which is supposed to be representing all of us as a church to ask why it is controversial for an article to suggest that neither a Jewish State nor a two state solution is viable in that troubled land is absurd. Strangely, in their progressive stance the people involved in IPMN are leaning far to the extreme right.

Moor writes:

Zionism is the belief that Jewish people ought to be privileged in Palestine/Israel solely because of their race. Moreover, non-Jewish indigenous people -- the Palestinians -- must be forced off the land so that it can be settled by Jews. That's what happened in 1948 and that's what's happening today in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Many liberal Zionists don't like to acknowledge it, but the process that yielded the land west of the green line was just as wrong as anything the setters have done. Its scale was also several magnitudes larger.

First of all this is not a completely true statement, because it is not complete history. But secondly, and more importantly it is a statement that means Israel as a state, and yes a Jewish State, should never have happened. So the leaders of IPMN believe that statement is not controversial. That is why I state that they are leaning very far to the right as far as the Jewish people and the nation of Israel are concerned.

Moor goes on to write:

It's astonishing that this is a controversial view in the 21st century. It's surely a feat of Zionist historicizing that otherwise intelligent and moral people in the West continuously affirm the "right of Israel to exist as the Jewish state." The racism inherent in this statement -- Jewish privilege exists through ethnic cleansing and apartheid -- is appalling. Yet, people uncritically affirm that "right."

Let me correct Moor's statement before continuing on with what I wish to say about IPMN. It is not and was not ethnic cleansing. It was a battle between one state and the many others who attacked that state. There were atrocities on both sides. Some Palestinians were pushed out by Israel, some fled because they thought they could come back after the Arab nations who had attacked Israel destroyed her.

A Jewish Israel exists because wise and compassionate peoples believed that after 2000 years of persecution a state for the Jews was the answer to that problem. Israel is a haven that all Jews acknowledge. The ancient homeland of the Israelites was chosen for the very reason that it was the ancient homeland of the Jewish people. (Uganda & the United States were considered.) It was also chosen because Jewish people were already living in the land. The attribute ‘indigenousness’ belongs as much if not more to the Jews as it does to any other people living there.

There already exists, in the Middle East, as well as several other areas Islamic nations. If a one state solution were used in solving the problems between the Palestinians and Israelis there would soon no longer be a safe haven for the Jews in the Middle East. History has already shown that in the midst of a crisis within a nation the Jews are often the scapegoat. It would seem that the Palestinian writer does not want a two state solution because he does not want a Jewish State. Does the IPMN want a Jewish State?

I do not know if Ahmed Moor is a Muslim or a Christian, I do know that the members of IPMN are Presbyterian and hopefully Christian. Several Christian theologians have written and spoken about the place of the Jew within God’s keeping love. And they have seen the land of Israel as a sign that God keeps his promises.

For instance, I have quoted David Torrance and his list of ways that God is confronting the nations through the Jews. Of the State of Israel he writes:

Their presence in the promised land reminds us in the twentieth century that our destiny is not in our hands. The nations do not hold their destiny in their own hands. It is not in the hands of their governments. Our destiny is in the hand of God who personally intervenes in history challenging the nations to humble themselves and to obey him, even as he challenged Pharaoh.
....
Israel’s return to the land of promise, following as it does an attempt under Hitler to obliterate everything Jewish, reminds us not only that God is the Lord of history but also that events seem to be moving fairly fast toward the ultimate goal of history.

And Karl Barth reminds all of those who disparage the Jew that we do so because the Jew is a sign that we must all live by the grace of God. (The Christian is that too.) Barth writes:

Why do we so dislike to be told that the Jews are the chosen people? Why does Christendom continually search for fresh proof that this is no longer true? In a word, because we do not enjoy being told that the sun of free grace, by which alone we can live, shines not upon us, but upon the Jews, that it is the Jews who are elect and not the Germans, the French or the Swiss, [or the Arabs or Americans] and that in order to be chosen we must, for good or ill, either be Jews or else be heart and soul on the side of the Jews. ‘Salvation is of the Jews.” It is in their existence that we non-Jews come up against the rock of divine choice, which first passing over us is primarily made by Another, a choice which can concern us only in that it firsts concerns Him and cannot affect us except in Him and through Him.

Barth goes on to point out that we must not reject the One Jew, looking down from his cross. But his point is clear and Barth goes on explaining with the thought that to be chosen means we are guests in the house of the Jews. While we need sometimes to criticize the State of Israel we should not be suggesting that the place of safety provided for the Jewish people in the Holy Land should not exist. And I say ‘we’ here because the IPMN has pulled the whole Presbyterian Church in after them. They are we so we must keep apologizing for their/our actions.

We are in great danger of joining in history’s goosestep with the IPMN’s kind of thinking.



[1] It may be Noushin Framke, since she is the chair for the IPMN’s communications work group.

[2] picture by Christopher Juncker

Israel in tents in Haiti

The Israel/Palestine Mission Network is now featuring a blog called GOD BLISS by Gila Svirsky.

On the blog posting Svirsky takes the time to make disparaging remarks about Israeli help in Haiti, She writes:

"Last night I watched a popular weekly TV satire called “A Wonderful Country”, reprising Israel’s good deeds in sending a field hospital and PR team to Haiti. PR team? Yes, and well worth it, with the Israeli doctors saving lives and delivering babies enough to warrant many press releases. “Good job, good job, Israelis!” gush the patients. From under the rubble, one Hatian peers out and moans, “It was almost worth having an earthquake to meet all you wonderful folks from Israel.”

Svirsky then goes on to write about the problems in Gaza and how Israeli is to blame for everything. But I was amazed at her inability to allow anything good to be said of Israel. To see what the show, 'A Wonderful Country' was making fun of here is the real thing, not the satire, a video from MSNBC and the nightly news.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

But better still is a letter written home by an Israeli soldier:

IDF Soldier's Eyewitness Account In Haiti
The Delegation to Haiti - Sent by an IDF soldier in Haiti to his parents.Translated from the
Hebrew, by Jameel @ The Muqatahttp://muqata.blogspot.com

In the lifesaving IDF Medical Corps Delegation to Haiti which is housed in tents, doctors prevent disabilities. They administer aid to the sick, provide warmth, love, and a human touch. They love the wounded.In the IDF Medical Corps Delegation to Haiti which is housed in tents located in the middle of a hell, every complex medical case has an ethics review board.

In the IDF Medical Corps Delegation to Haiti which is housed in tents, the chances of success are debated whether to amputate the entire leg of a child: the chances of a premature infant to survive while on a ventilator in a preemie unit in the tent.

In the IDF Medical Corps Delegation to Haiti which is housed in tents, there were no rods left to brace complex fractures. Each rod costs 5000 Euros. Money is not the problem. There simply isn't any. An emergency room nurse had an idea. She went with with Munitions NCO to take similar rods to a local metal shop where they made dozens of new rods. They continue to save lives.

In the IDF Medical Corps Delegation to Haiti which is housed in tents, there is a networked computer system for patient management and tracking. X-rays taken in the radiation tent are viewed on a digital viewing system in the orthopedic tent.

In the IDF Medical Corps Delegation which came from Israel in the Middle East to Haiti, there are American volunteer doctors. They have no other useful installation in which to work in. A doctor and nurse from Germany came. They heard this is best hospital in Haiti. An emergency room team from Colombia arrived with all their equipment and asked if they could set up next to us to be part of our hospital. England is the enlightened country in Europe, the one which has an academic boycott of Israel; twenty British doctors and nurses asked to work with us.

All these people, without exception, stand together at the morning formation at 7 AM in the flag square. The flag of Israel. The flag of a country which was established after the USA was already superpower. After the British left a land under their control. After Colombia was already an established country. After the Holocaust against the Jewish people."

The rest of this can be found at the Muoata.

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:

Is an overture for a one state solution looming on the horizon?

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has for several years advocated for a two state solution for Israel and Palestine. Just the other day, I was telling someone, I would not be surprised if at least one if not several overtures were sent to 219th General Assembly calling for a one state solution. By that I mean a state which includes all the Palestinians as well as the people of Israel. This would of course destroy the State of Israel as a Jewish nation forever.

I conjectured that this might happen because lately I have noticed many articles on web sites, which various Presbyterian organizations link to, that advocate for a one state solution.

Now I find that Ali Abunimah co-founder of the Electronic Intifada a Palestine news site recommended in Steadfast Hope, a booklet published by the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has a book recommending just that, "One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Palestinian-Israeli Impasse."

I also see that Abunimah has been a speaker at a Presbyterian Church just this year, First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto, hosted the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, featuring Abunimah.

Abunimah insists that a Jewish state could only be a racist apartheid state. He states “When we get to the point where the mantra ‘Jewish State’ no matter what the cost ... it’s always wrong. He then speaks of what he and others call the ethnic cleansing that happened in 1948, and goes on to repeat that there is no way to have a Jewish State without ethnic cleansing.

I believe those Presbyterians who are pro Israel need to understand that there is a move among activist to see Israel as racist and undemocratic unless she gives up her real meaning. That is, they want Israel to give up her sole purpose, which is a place of safety for the persecuted Jewish people.

I do not believe we understand how close we are to another massive pogrom aimed not just at a village in Eastern Europe but at a whole nation.

Before World War II many nations and leaders talked and wrote about what was called the ‘Jewish problem’ and how to solve it. Some Jewish people tried to assimilate into whatever country was their homeland but that was never to be a safe decision. Many times when nations faced a crisis the Jewish people became the scapegoat.

Of course Hitler and the Nazi’s solution were gas chambers, while the Zionist solution was a homeland for the Jewish people. And, indeed, that appears to be the solution of the sovereign Lord of history.

Perhaps this is an apologetic to soon. I hope so!

But I believe the idea of wiping out Israel as a Jewish State by turning her into a state where the Jewish people are a minority among her enemies is not different then pogroms or gas chambers and will lead to another Holocaust.

Politics & Christology my apologia

A friend asked me several days ago, “why was I writing on politics so much when the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) needed good Christological theology.” Good question. And sometimes I feel unfaithful, as though I haven’t been writing enough about Jesus, his cross, the wonderful salvation he bestows on us, the righteousness he gives that is his and his alone. But are political issues like the State of Israel, or the ordination of practicing homosexuals disconnected from Christology?

-

Hardly. The homosexual issue is so clear I won’t even go there. Faithfulness to Christ includes faithfulness to his word, both the Old and New Testaments. But what about the State of Israel? What about the Jewish People? How do they even begin to connect to Christology?

First of all models for living out correct Christology, that is following Jesus Christ as Lord, while living in the midst of institutions which foster anti-Semitism, are abundant in the past century, not the least of which is Corrie ten Boon and Dietrich Bonheoffer.

Perhaps Presbyterians don’t remember or know anything about Corrie ten Boom. She wrote a book in 1971 entitled the Hiding Place. It is the story of her family and how they hid Jewish people in their home in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation. Corrie lost all of her family in concentration camps. She was also a prisoner but was freed due to a clerical error. The title of her book has a double meaning. There was a hiding place in their home, and there is a hiding place in God because of Jesus Christ.

One of the important things to know about the Booms was their devotion to both Jesus Christ and the Jewish people. The family had participated in prayer meetings for almost a hundred years praying for the Jewish people before the time of the Nazis. God gives us our deepest desires, centers them in himself and then uses us in that place he has prepared for us. That is never outside of, can never be outside of, our relationship to Jesus Christ.

Dietrich Bonheoffer is undoubtedly well known to Presbyterians as well as most mainline church members and also known to many Evangelicals. The Cost of Discipleship, his most well known book is read by both conservatives and liberals. One of the most prominent members of the Confessing Church, Bonheoffer spoke out the most about what was happening to the Jewish people in Germany and elsewhere.

Although he was finally executed for his part in the plot to kill Hitler, he was actually jailed for his part in helping Jews cross the borders of Germany.

One small but excellent book, Christ the Center, is the restructured notes of Bonheoffer’s students taken during his lectures on Christology in the year 1933. Bonheoffer was very concerned with the fate of the Jewish people and with Christology.

But the connection with Christology and the State of Israel, which Bonheoffer did not live to see, has to do with that safe place that God has provided for them. If Christ is God, and he is, and if God is sovereign, which he is, then the State of Israel is a part of his plan for our day. I don’t think we can biblically say what will happen to Israel as a state in this our time, but I do think we can say, biblically, what may happen to the nations who are intent on her destruction if they continue their course.

Still the theological connection between the Jewish people, Israel and Christology is best explained by Arthur C. Cochrane in the chapter “The Message of Barmen for Contemporary Church History,” in The German Church Struggle and the Holocaust.[1] He is looking at some of Karl Barth’s thoughts about what was the most devastating theological heresies affecting theology during the Nazi era.

Barth at first honed in on the idea of a second revelation given by the German Christians set alongside God’s revelation in Christ. (And that is very important) Yet, Cochrane points out that in a sermon given in Dec.10, 1933 on Romans 15:5-13 “it is evident that he [Barth] had come to see the Jewish question as a question of faith in Jesus Christ and that post Christum is identical with Israel ante Christum.”

Cochrane goes on to write about those who organized the Pastor’s Emergency League and how they understood, as they resisted the Aryan paragraph, that there existed a unity between the Jews and the Church, as he puts it, “’Salvation is from the Jews’—not only two thousand years ago but in every generation as well.”

But some of Cochrane’s words as he explains the connections are profound.

“It dawned upon them [Christian scholars concerned with the Holocaust] that the Jewish question is the question about Jesus Christ, that the spirit of Antisemitism is the spirit of antichrist, and where the Jews are hated and persecuted, the faithful followers of the Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, will also be hated and persecuted. They realized that in the last analysis the Church Struggle and World War II were waged because of Israel and that in spite of the Holocaust, Israel could not be annihilated.

Cochrane quotes Jeremiah 31:35-36. “Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord of hosts is his name: If the fixed order departs from before me says the Lord, then shall the descendents of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.”

I believe that is a complete apologia. The connection between the Jewish people and the State of Israel is a cord of steel. The connection between the Jewish people and Christians is unbreakable. As that spirit of Antisemitism and antichrist arise in both the mainline churches and the surrounding countries of Israel I will be writing about politics as well as Christology.

[1] The book The German Church Struggle and the Holocaust is a collection of essays given at a conference by that name in 1974. The essays are by Christians, Jews and even a few pagans. The one by Elie Wiesel, “Talking and Writing and Keeping Silent,” is worth the price of the book if you can find it.

About Israel...up-date

I wanted to put up something light for the weekend, but given what is happening in the UN Human Rights Council I don't feel much like lightness. A friend on Facebook said yesterday:

"There is a deadly, run-away truck rolling down the hills of our generation…Some refuse to learn from history, and stand on the sidewalks of our time and simply watch in a paralyzed, silent stupor."

After referring to the Christian Zionist movement that he is a big part of he wrote in a comment. "I'm thinkin' we step in front of the truck and shout "STOP!! YOU CANNOT PASS NOR GO ANY FURTHER!"

I am not a Christian Zionist but I am a Presbyterian who is pro Israel and I think Victor Styrsky's words should burn the conscience of every mainline Christian.

Col. Richard Kemp on the Goldstone Report



UP-Date:
A good article because it looks at the different countries and how they voted:
"UN Human Wrongs Council it is by David Harris the Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee. The beginning:

"Some votes are eminently forgettable. Others are not.

Today's vote in the mistakenly-named UN Human Rights Council is the latter. Although denunciations of Israel have become commonplace in the Council, this vote provides a window into the souls of those 47 member states that currently belong to this Geneva-based body, and what we see will be long remembered."

There is also this: Goldstone Attacks UN Resolution On His Gaza War Report. The UN Human Rights Council used the condemnation of Israel in the Goldstone report but not its condemnation of Hamas.

The history of words and places- a look at another article from Sabeel's Cornerstone

On October the first I posted an article, Laundering words, omitting words, both are lies. I was writing about an article titled, “The Laundering of Words and the Oppression of Palestinians.” It was written by the Rev. Naim Ateek Director of Sabeel in Jerusalem. In Sabeel’s magazine, Cornerstone, the summer 2009 edition, he is pointing to another article, “The Factory of Words,” by Gideon Levy. Picture the Western Wall of Jerusalem taken by en:User:Chmouel,

While Ateek often approaches his topics from a liberation theology point of view, Levy approaches his topics from a far left secular position. Ateek is a Christian, Levy a secular Jew. They both believe that there should not be a Jewish State and believe any such state would be a racist state.

Levy, like Ateek, is attempting to prove that Israel is using words in such a way that they will cover up the truth. And, like Ateek, he believes this was done from the beginning of the State of Israel and even before.

Levy starts his article with his own propaganda-like words. He writes of being a young teenager during and after the six day war. He writes, “At six o’clock after the war Israel was in a nationalistic and religious orgy. Almost everyone participated in this orgy – orthodox and secular, Ashkenazi and Sephardic, young and old. The Land of Israel was liberated and the people of Israel, the chosen people, were saved.” (emphasis mine)

Levy goes on to write about his interest as a teenager in seeing, after the war, “Abraham’s tomb in Hebron, Rachel’s tomb in Bethlehem” and “the Wailing Wall.” He later complains that now, they are “cursed places,” because there is “armed soldiers and policemen at the entrance of Abraham’s tomb and an apartheid wall that separates Rachel’s tomb from Bethlehem….”

As I have written over and over this is simply half a story. Before the Six-Day War the Israelites did not have access to these places at all. For a history of the Wailing Wall see Western Wall - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. In the years before the State of Israel was formed there was constant interference with the Jews in their attempts to worship there. They were even arrested for blowing the shofar on the Day of Atonement. After the birth of the State of Israel the wall came under Jordan’s control and the Jewish people could not go there, not even those Jews who were visiting Jordan from other countries.

The tomb of Abraham has a deeply violent history that faults both Islamic groups and radical Jewish groups. The Mideast and North Africa Encyclopedia gives the details:

“Although predominantly a town inhabited by Palestinian Arab Muslims, a small Jewish community lived in Hebron throughout the centuries. During British rule, the Jews left after the Arab-Jewish disturbances of August 1929 when sixty-four Jews were massacred. Hebron was annexed by Jordan in 1950 in the aftermath of the Arab-Israel War of 1948, and it was occupied by Israel during the Arab - Israel War of 1967. As a result, Jews were allowed to pray in the al-Haram, something formerly forbidden to them.” (Emphasis mine)

The article goes on to tell of a horrible massacre by a Jewish person after some militant settlers moved into the region. “Hebron's worst violence in decades occurred in February 1994 when Baruch Goldstein, a U.S.-born Jewish settler, entered the al-Haram al-Ibrahimi mosque and massacred twenty-nine Palestinian worshippers before he himself was killed.”

Rachel’s tomb, the third holiest site for the Jewish people, was also a forbidden place for the Jews after the 1948 war. Today it is surrounded by a wall because it had become such a dangerous place that no one would travel there. The story of Rachel’s tomb and the reason it is surrounded by walls and soldiers is told at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

All of these stories are to say that the problems in the Middle East are hard, complex and sad. They do not fit into an article that paints Israel with the brush that Levy has used. Levy complains that Israel cannot be a Democracy because she has occupied the Palestinian territories for so long. But what other Democracy does the modern world know whose neighbors are intent on destroying her.

This is not to excuse some of the actions of Israel; her people are sinners like all of humanity. But painting false pictures of Israel, as Levy has done is unacceptable. A.B. Yehoshua one of the great writers of Israel, a member of the peace movement in Israel, and a critic of the occupation wrote a letter criticizing Levy for his extreme views and his thoughts on the last conflict in Israel and Gaza. From his letter:

“The doleful thought sometimes crosses my mind that it is not the children of Gaza or of Israel that you are pining for, but only for your own private conscience. Because if you are truly concerned about the death of our children and theirs, you would understand the present war - not in order to uproot Hamas from Gaza but to induce its followers to understand, and regrettably in the only way they understand in the meantime, that they must stop the firing unilaterally, stop hoarding missiles for a bitter and hopeless war to destroy Israel, and above all for the sake of their children in the future, so they will not die in another pointless adventure.”

I believe God calls us, in our Christian walk, to honesty.

Laundering words, omitting words, both are lies

About Rev. Nain Ateek's article, "The laundering of words and the oppression of Palestinians."

CHURCHandWORLD linked yesterday, October 3, to a pdf file from the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem. The file was the center’s publication, Cornerstone, summer edition 2009, the article was The laundering of words and the oppression of Palestinians.

The article is by Rev. Nain Ateek the Director of Sabeel. His article was pointing to another article by Gideon Levy, “The Factory of Words.”

Ateek uses the epistle of James to remind his readers that human words are capable of great evil. And they are. Some words become evil, as Ateek points out, because they are replacement words that tend to cover the reality of events. They whitewash and so become lies.

But there are other ways to use words to mislead and make lies. That is by omitting words, a whole string of words such as sentences and paragraphs. That is a way to lie about history and morality and even Christianity.

Ateek writes, “From the beginning of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the propaganda machine of the state of Israel has coined words, created myths, produced stereotypes, and crafted propaganda tools in order to justify and legitimize the Zionist narrative, while at the same time, it has managed to cast doubt upon and negate the Palestinian narrative.”

Note that Ateek says the propaganda started from the beginning of the Palestinian-Israel conflict. So when one reads this and knows the beginning history of the conflict, and yes, it goes back to the time of the Holocaust, but is mainly centered around 1947-1948, then one knows that vast amounts of words have been erased or omitted from the article. And only innuendo remains.

Ateek goes on to suggest that Israel from the beginning has smeared the Palestinians as warmongers and “innately violent.” But this is a double lie.

Israel’s beginning narrative is its conflict not so much with the Palestinians; it was that also, but mainly with at least five Arab nations who at that time and even today have misused the Palestinians. So the Israeli beginning narrative revolves mainly around the attack by Syria, Egypt, Jordan and other Arab nations of their new State. And that narrative does not hold that the Palestinians are “innately violent,” but rather that militant and radical Islam is innately violent.

And yes there was violence and destruction on both sides. That is the whole story without omitting words, or sentences or paragraphs.

Ateek implies that the Israelis are blaming the victim when they do not take responsibility for what the Palestinians call the Nakba (the catastrophe), that is the birth of the State of Israel and the displacement of about 750, 000 Palestinians from the new State.

Ateek sets up a simplified picture, insisting that while Israel denies any responsibility for the Palestinians leaving there is scientific and historical evidence coming from Jewish historians proving that movement of the Palestinians out of Israel was planned by the “Zionist leaders.” He cites both Benny Morris and Pappe.

But what does Morris say in his book, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War:

“the refugee problem was created by the war—which the Arabs had launched … And it was that war that propelled most of these displaced out of their houses and into refugeedom. Most fled when their villages and towns came under Jewish attack or out of fear of future attack. They wished to move out of harm’s way. … Most of the displaced likely expected to return to their homes within weeks or months, on the coattails of victorious Arab armies or on the back of UN decision or Great Power intervention."

Morris also wrote, after writing about any ideas that the Zionist leadership may have had about expulsion, “Nonetheless, transfer or expulsion was never adopted by the Zionist movement or its main political groupings as official policy at any state of the movement’s evolution—not even in the 1948 War.”[1]

Both Pappe and Morris are part of what is called the New Historians of Israel. Yet Morris has criticized Pappe’s historical accounts. Several other Jewish historians have as well. Historian Efraim Karsh quotes him in a review of his book, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples,

Pappe states, “My bias is apparent despite the desire of my peers that I stick to facts and the "truth" when reconstructing past realities. I view any such construction as vain and presumptuous. This book is written by one who admits compassion for the colonized not the colonizer; who sympathizes with the occupied not the occupiers.”

Ateek uses the verse, “You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32) He writes that Sabeel’s objective is, “to help discern the truth because the truth is capable of setting people free.” Yes, but Jesus was speaking of himself. He is the truth, the life and the way. He is the one that sets us all free. If we will let Him he will free us from telling lies either by laundering words or by omitting the words.

I will write about Gideon Levy’s article the following week.

[1] All of the Morris quotes are taken from, Alan Dershowitz, The Case Against Israel’s Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who Stand in the Way of Peace, (John Wily & Sons 2008)

A clarification about one of my postings

One of the commenters on my article Some very good articles on Marc Garlasco, the Human Rights Watch member who obsessively collects Nazi memorabilia, questioned the accuracy of the article by NGO Monitor.

Because the person who questioned the accuracy is a friend who I respect I sent an e-mail to the organization asking for clarification.

I have just received their e-mail with the answer which includes some links. The concern about the article was whether Hermann Göring received the Iron Cross in World War I or II. It seems according to the links sent me that he received one during WWI but later in WW II received the Grand Cross version of the Iron Cross. And it was given by Hitler.

The two links are Reddick Militaria and Trial.

I have had so many disagreeing comments on an article that I still feel is very good that I felt this clarification should be a post as well as a comment.

Some very good articles on Marc Garlasco, the Human Rights Watch member who obsessively collects Nazi memorabilia

I have seen two very coherent and reasonable articles about Marc Garlasco, the military analyst for Human Rights Watch, who is on leave from that organization due to his obsessive collecting of Nazi memorabilia.

The first is a three part posting by an “Advisory Committee member with HRW for some 17 years,” Helena Cobban. She was bothered enough by Garlasco’s activities to write about it and defend her feelings against some rather insistent detractors. (Picture of book, The Flak Badges of the Luftwaffe and Heer by Garlasco)

Here is part of her third posting:

“ I do not claim to know what Garlasco's attitude is toward the Nazi-era military memorabilia that he so obsessively collects. He clearly seems to have a collector's zeal, or obsession, and to spend a lot of time pursuing this hobby. 7,734 posts on Wehrmacht Awards since March 2004, and compiling a 450-page guide to one small sub-branch of Nazi-era badges are not the signs of a casual collector. The comment shown above, made on Wehrmacht Awards in 2005, indicates some open-ness, at the very least, to the idea that one could entertain and express fondness for specifically SS memorabilia.

Also, using 'Flak88' seems like a signal of possible pro-Hitler proclivities to others in that part of the collecting world, who would be quite aware that '88' is their insiders' code for Heil Hitler.”

Here are her three statements.

Marc Garlasco's little "hobby"
Garlasco, part 2
Garlasco, part 3

NGO Monitor also has a complete article with many links. (I should state at this point that Helena Cobban and the editors of NGO Monitor are far apart on their views about Middle East issues, while fairly much in agreement on Garlasco’s hobby.) But in reading this as well as the above postings the reader can understand why I will continue to view Garlasco’s collecting as obsessive and focused on ‘Nazi’ memorabilia.

Here is part of that article:

"According to HRW’s response, “Garlasco’s own family’s experience on both sides of the Second World War has led him to collect military items related to both sides . . .” While Garlasco’s interest may have been a result of his family history, his hobby borders on the obsessive and is one-sided. He has posted thousands of comments on Nazi memorabilia sites including German combatawards (981 posts) and Wehrmacht-awards (7735 posts). In one post, he notes that he takes his collection of medals (many of which are swastika-adorned) out on a yearly basis to admire and photograph. He has even gone so far as to say he would “kill” to obtain a piece. HRW claims Garlasco also collects US Airforce memorabilia. Research conducted by NGO Monitor could not find any evidence that Garlasco’s interest in US military memorabilia approaches the level to which he is devoted to Nazi paraphernalia.”

You can read the article here: Expert or Ideologues?: HRW’s Defense of Marc Garlasco’s Nazi Fetish

Using the Belhar Confession to overcome Israel’s “racism,” and as a means to bring about repentance from those desiring a Jewish State!

Sometime after the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s General Assembly I posted an article, The Belhar Confession & God's final revelation on my blog about how it might be possible to use Belhar as a means of insisting that a denomination must ordain practicing homosexuals.

What I did not know at that time was that at the General Synod (2004) of the Reformed Church in America[1], two speakers, one from South Africa, the other from Palestine, insisted not only that the Belhar confession would provide a means for “justice” for homosexuals in the church and unity among the three monotheistic faiths, but that it might be a means for bringing those who desire a Jewish State to repentance.

The first speaker, The Rev. Christo Lombard from the Uniting Reformed Church of South Africa laid out some of the more positive aspects of Belhar and attempted to give it a strong connection to Barmen and Barth. That in itself calls for a different posting. But as a contextual theologian he emphasized how Belhar could be used in other contexts, including Palestine.

Under the subtitle “the Palestine struggle for independence and justice,” Lombard stated:

“ It is with grave and almost bewildered concern that South Africans (and other citizens of our planet) witness the typical violent and oppressive (“apartheid”) route the Palestinian struggle for justice is taking under the almost unbelievable measures of the Israeli state to “control” the lives of Palestinians in the smallest details, like in the “old” South Africa. With bitter irony, walls are now being erected around Palestinian cities or enclaves, reminding us of the Jewish ghettos of the holocaust. If there is one situation in this world that contextually fits the antiapartheid struggle and its dynamics, for which the Belhar Confession was written, it must be the Palestinian situation, currently. Only, the situation in the “Holy Land” appears to be even more serious, threatening, and inhuman than the terrible days of apartheid in South Africa. Is it possible? Does this not cry out for another status confessionis? Do we have any consistency in the very heart of our Christian convictions about justice?”

Lombard’s speech covered a wide range of uses to make of Belhar including the idea of justice for those he considered marginalized in the church. But the next speaker, The Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, pastor of Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and General Director of the International Center of Bethlehem, dealt chiefly with Palestine, including the three monotheistic faiths in the area.

Raheb, of course, found it necessary to show the differences between the problems of South Africa and the problems in Palestine and Israel. That is, since the problem in South Africa was between different churches or Christians, Raheb looked for divisions among the churches in his area and found it mainly between those Christians who consider themselves Christian Zionists and the churches that reject Christian Zionism. He found it also between those who support Israel as a Jewish State and those who do not.

But an important thought here with both Lombard and Raheb is that one must see Israel as racist in order to use Belhar as a confession to address the issues. And besides the racist label, one must expand the definitions of those involved since the scenario moves from Christian unity to ethnic unity combined with interfaith unity. This is interesting because Belhar pointed to a church denying the Christian faith because of the lack of unity between believers.

Raheb asks, “My reading of the Belhar Confession suggests that there could be a small open window, which might help us to do exactly this. On several places in the confession the word “church” is replaced by another category called “the People of God.” The Belhar Confession uses this term to describe the church. My question would be, is it possible to expand this “People of God” terminology to encompass the “peoples of God,” including in this Jews and Muslims? And by this to provide a monotheistic platform for unity?”

In his attempt to contextualize the confession Raheb clearly moves far beyond Barmen and Barth. And as I have contended in other postings this is due to a lack of placing the confession of Christ as Lord as the foremost reason for the Belhar Confession.

Raheb goes on to refer to Barmen as a Confession directed against the “racist ideology” of the Nazis. But he fails to understand that its main focus was confessing Christ. Christ as Lord means that the commandments of other lords such as “hate Jews” or “tell lies about Jews” cannot be obeyed.

After referring to Barmen he now turns to Israel and the Jews insisting that now it is time for a Jewish confession. He states:

“Where do our Jewish dialogical partners stand with regard to the apartheid system which is being perpetuated by the Israeli government? Why don’t we hear more Jewish clergy raising their clear voices against this? Isn’t it time for a clear Jewish confession or for maybe a joint Jewish-Christian confession regarding the lands and the people under Israeli occupation? We have been confessing our sins to the Jewish people over and over again for fifty years now. And we do not regret doing that. But we should now expect our Jewish partners to confess their sins against the Palestinian people. A moment of truth has come. This issue, I believe, will either make or break Jewish-Christian dialogue. It is in this spirit of the Belhar Confession that I hope we can come to forge a unified Jewish-Christian confession on this issue.”

But one must deny several issues to state any of this. One has to deny the need for a Jewish State, which means that the history of the persecution of the Jews has been ignored. And above all else a denial of the very reason for a confession has occurred. The main reason for the Church’s Confession is to clearly confess Jesus Christ as Lord.


[1]see REPORTS ON MISSION AND CHRISTIAN UNITY 218 GENERAL SYNOD/JUNE 2004

Truth, History, and some stories about the Jewish people UP-DATE

UP-Date see below.

History is important. It is human memories made secure by documents as well as oral reports. Secured by ancient buildings and scars, by unearthed shards, and, for Christians and Jews, by a Holy Book. There is an interesting small piece of Jewish history found in the Wall Street Journel . Written by Jerold S. Auerbach it is entitled "Remembering the Hebron Massacre: Until 1929, Jews had lived in the city for three millennia."

Here is part of the story:

"No theme is more deeply embedded in Jewish history than exile and return. The biblical exodus from Egypt to the promised land, the return from Babylonian exile, and, most recently, the establishment of the state of Israel all affirmed the enduring determination of the Jewish people to return to their homeland.

Yet another wrenching exile and return, now rarely remembered, occurred 80 years ago this week. On Aug. 23-24, 1929, the Jewish community of Hebron was exiled following a horrific pogrom. The tragedy is known as Tarpat, an acronym for its date in the Hebrew calendar. Until 1929, Jews had lived in Hebron for three millennia. There, according to Jewish tradition, Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah to bury Sarah. It was the first parcel of land owned by the Jewish people in their promised land. Ever since, religious Jews revered Hebron as the burial site of their matriarchs and patriarchs. Conquered, massacred and expelled over the centuries, Jews always returned to this sacred place."

The story, if you read it, goes on to tell of yet another massacre and another return. The massacre almost twenty years before the 1948 birth of Israel, the return forty years later after the 1967 war.

When I read the above article I thought of a piece I read today linked to by ChurchandWorld.Com. It was at Ecumenical News International. And it is the same old story. The General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Rev. Samuel Kobia, is calling, without any context, the 'occupation' of Palestine by Israel a sin.

His labeling of the Israelites as sinners, (we all are) is laid not only at the 1967 war but goes all the way back to the 1948 war, when five Arab nations attacked the new State of Israel.

According to the article, Kobia stated the "Israelis recalled 'The War of Independence' that led to the foundation of the State of Israel, for Palestinians the period would always be known as the 'Nakba' or 'catastrophe'. Many Palestinians would remember this as 'a form of 'ethnic cleansing' that saw the largest forced migration in modern history', Kobia said. "It is estimated that no less than a million people were expelled from their homes at gunpoint, civilians were massacred, hundreds of Palestinian villages deliberately destroyed, mosques and churches profaned, and convents and schools vandalised."

What a sorry half story, and because of that a false story. Truly what sinners we all are.

Thinking once again of history, of what constitutes the reality of history for the Christian. The history of the Church is where human history is touched by God. More than that it is where human history is overcome by God, by Emanuel.

This Church, the Church, the universal Church, reaches back before creation and is found in the heart and mind of God. It reaches onward through eternity, it encompasses those gone before, those dwelling on earth, those in heaven.

And then there is the particular Church. It does not matter whether Baptist or Presbyterian, etc, it is the body of Christ gathered before the Lordship of Jesus Christ. But what has this to do with history, and Israel and false stories that are called history.

Institutions are needed for various reasons. But sometimes they turn inward and in doing so create their own ideologies and from their own ideologies shape their own understanding of history. The World Council of Churches sometimes launches its own ship viewing history from its own ideology.

Kobia seemingly has not read the full and true history of that time, that time that grew out of and replaced the time of the Holocaust and all that went before it. He knows nothing of the sins of both parties, only Israel, the Jews he blames.

Where the Church confesses Christ as Lord she will confess him also Lord of history. She will not listen to the pronouncements or the historical untruths of worldly organizations and institutions. Jesus Christ is truth, may his Church know truth.

Up-Date: For extra information on Hebron: see What Happened in Hebron? by Seth Lipsky.

The author ends his story with this information and a link.

"In 1968, a group of Jews, lead by Rabbi Moshe Levinger and his family and animated by Zionist fundamentals and reverence for the patriarchs, moved back to Hebron and have been there ever since, often, it seems, to the consternation not only of the diplomats and the Arabs but even of many Israelis, some of the Jewish institutions, and of the current administration in Washington. The date on which Levinger and his followers mark the anniversary of the massacre is known by the acronym Tarpat, for the Hebrew date, which has just passed. Their community has posted to the internet a group of photos of some of those who perished and of the desecration of religious objects. A lot of things have been said about the Hebron Jews. But one thing that cannot be said is that they are prepared to abandon Hebron in the face of the kinds of danger that overwhelmed their forebears 80 years ago."

The Charters of Israel's enemies

My husband is having eye surgery in the morning. (cataracts) I am not sure when I will get back to posting. In the mean time here is a lot of reading. It is on the StandWithUs web site. There are three things. First is the
THE PALESTINIAN NATIONAL CHARTER
(PLO CHARTER)

Then the, "The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement" (Hamas) and "An Open Letter. The Hizballah Program." To read all three of these go to Charters of Anti-Israel Organizations .

From the PLO there is this:
"Article 9: Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it . They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self determination and sovereignty over it."

And this from the Hizballah to the Christians:

"Free yourselves from the consequences of hateful confessionalism. Banish from your hearts all fanaticism and parochialism. Open your hearts to our Call (da'wa) which we address to you. Open yourselves up to Islam where you'll find salvation and happiness upon earth and in the hereafter. We extend this invitation also to all the oppressed among the non-Muslims. As for those who belong to Islam only formally, we exhort them to adhere to Islam in religious practice and to renounce all fanaticisms which are rejected by our religion." (My emphasis)

And under The Necessity for the Destruction of Israel*:

"Our primary assumption in our fight against Israel states that the Zionist entity is aggressive from its inception, and built on lands wrested from their owners, at the expense of the rights of the Muslim people. Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated."

From the Hamas charter:

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

And:

Nationalism, from the point of view of the Islamic Resistance Movement, is part of the religious creed. Nothing in nationalism is more significant or deeper than in the case when an enemy should tread Moslem land. Resisting and quelling the enemy become the individual duty of every Moslem, male or female. A woman can go out to fight the enemy without her husband's permission, and so does the slave: without his master's permission.

And:

They [The Zionist or Jews]took into consideration the causes affecting the current of events. They strived to amass great and substantive material wealth which they devoted to the realisation of their dream. With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries an instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.

You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere,without having their finger in it."

These are the enemies that Israel faces. You may think that no one would believe any of these lies but recently some dear friends of mine brought me some articles with some ideas in it just like this. They were afraid it was true. Weep and pray for the Jewish people.

Here is a video that fits well with the above words. Please feel free to comment I may however, be late in publishing your comment but I will do so.

A strange tale about the Yemeni Jews as told by the Electronic Intifada

In one of my earlier postings on the Israel/Palestine Mission Network and their publication Steadfast Hope: The Palestinian Quest for Just Peace, I pointed out that the authors had suggested the news outlet Electronic Intifada as an alternative to mainline news. They did this because they believe that the news in the United States is too influenced or controlled by Jewish groups in the United States.

Just recently, August 13, 2009, the Electronic Intifada posted an article “JNF [Jewish National Fund] presence in S. America perpetuates Palestine injustice.” The article is intended to be a protest that purports that JNF has over many years gathered funds to build recreational areas and forests to cover over Palestinian villages that Israel razed. It is also a protest that JNF have, at these sites, built monuments to various South American patriots.

Besides my thought that perhaps JNF is simply creating recreational areas and forests for the welfare of others,[1] there are several other peculiar features in the article that I found objectionable, but this paragraph caught my attention immediately:

“Moshav (the Zionist term for village) Eshtaol, built on the ruins of Ishwa, is a village of immigrants from Yemen, who were transferred by the Zionist movement to Palestine right after the 1948 ethnic cleansing. In the transfer camp in Sana, Yemen's capital, the Zionist Agency looted more then [sic] 50 tons of the Yemeni Jewish community's ancient sacred books and manuscripts and many tons of goldsmithing, a craft in which they specialized. In the transfer camp, children were kidnapped and were delivered to European Jewish families for adoption. Once in Moshav Eshtaol, and in the neighboring Moshav, Yishi, which has an identical story, the community succeeded in restoring a part of life as it was in Yemen.”

To even begin to unravel this paragraph is a major job. Of course the first thought is that the reference to ethnic cleansing is totally false. This is about the 1948 war when many Arab nations attacked the new State of Israel.

Also the camp from which the Yemeni Jews were airlifted was Hashed, and was in a remote area. It was not Sana. Sana is the place the last of the contemporary Yemeni Jews have been moved to since the latest atrocities have been committed against the small community. They are preparing to leave Yemen.

There are some references to a mystery that might entail kidnapped children, but in Israel not in any transfer camp. And the speculation on this has nothing to do with Israel as a nation. The idea that Israelis stole the Yemeni Jewish “community's ancient sacred books and manuscripts and many tons of goldsmithing,” has no reference at all.

The truth of the matter is that the main reason the Yemeni Jews left Yemen was because of physical attacks against the Jewish Community in Yemen after Israel became a nation.

Another interesting part of this article is the interconnection between the new Socialist countries in South America, some of who are pushing anti-Semitism and Socialist movements connected to the Palestinian radicals. This appeal to South America on behalf of the Palestinians is, with the emphasis on both the monuments to South American patriots and the focus on a people who might be considered a small tribal group in opposition to the whole of Israel, a farce.

The Electronic Intifada is not a good source of news about the Middle East. It is a propaganda tool, and that is too bad. Perhaps if the article had been about the tribulations the small remaining community in Yemen is experiencing because of militant Islam and how the Yemeni Jews might be helped that would have real meaning.

As a conclusion I am placing one of the video’s I recently placed on my site about the Jewish people exiled from all of the Arab countries after 1948. I am placing the one that just slightly into the film shows the rescue of the Yemeni Jews. It uses old film clips which makes it very interesting. (The first two people speaking are an exiled Iraqi Jew and one from Egypt.)



1. [1] It should be noted that monuments of South American heroes are there because it was South American countries who gave the funds for the forests. For instance see, Latin America
Latin America by Benno Weiser at Welcome to AJC Archives

More from the Presbyterian Israel/Palestine Mission Network's booklet Steadfast Hope

I have deleted my last posting in order to put this closer to my posting Were Holocaust victims linked genealogically to biblical Israel?. I have decided to simply place some quotes here from the booklet, "Steadfast Hope: The Palestinian Quest for Just Peace" published by the The Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

In my last posting I quoted this from the booklet:

“The founding narrative of the State of Israel links the modern-day Jews’ claim to the land of Israel/Palestine to their direct genealogical descent from the ancient Israelites. Recent anthropological scholarship shows that this widespread belief is very likely a myth, not historical fact. Shlomo Sand, an expert on European history at the university of Tel Aviv, and author of When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? posits that the Jews were never exiled en masse from the Holy Land and that many European Jewish populations converted to the faith centuries later. Thus, he argues, many of today’s Israelis who emigrated from Europe after World War II have little or no genealogical connection to the ancient land of Israel.”

This anti-Semitic statement makes the whole booklet suspect but there is more. I will write out a couple of quotes from Steadfast Hope and then show how the quotes are misleading by using other authors to counter them.

"On March 10, 1948, (Well before surrounding Arab nations joined the conflict), David Ben Gurion (Who later became Israel's first Prime Minister) and his advisors implemented Plan Dalet, a military operation to depopulate and destroy non-Jewish villages, The goal was the ethnic cleansing of Palestine's non-Jewish population." (p.9)

The term "ethnic cleansing" is used constantly in this booklet. In contrast, Walter Laqueur, who is not a conservative, but an excellent historian, in his comprehensive book "A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel," writes about what happened shortly after The United Nations voted for the partition of Palestine:

"The next morning the Palestinian Arabs called a three day-protest strike, and Jews in all parts of the country were attacked. On that first day of rioting seven were killed and more injured; the fighting continued to the end of the mandate. The next months, as chaos engulfed Palestine, were a time of crisis for the Jewish community. ...The most pressing task facing the Jewish population was to strengthen its defenses, since the Arab countries had already announced that their armies would enter the country as soon as the British left. Syria was not willing to wait that long: an 'Arab Liberation Army" inside Palestine was established in February with the help of Syrian officers as well as irregulars." (p. 583-84)

And:

"While Britain continued to supply arms to the neighboring Arab countries, and America had declared a general arms embargo, the Jewish forces had great great difficulty in obtaining supplies. By February the Arab forces were on the offensive throughout the country. While they did not succeed in capturing Jewish settlements, they all but paralysed the traffic among them, and even Jerusalem was about to become a besieged city. The Jewish relief force sent to the help of the Ezion settlements had been wiped out to the last man, a terrible loss by the standards of these days." (p583)

And writing of the horrible retaliations that happened on both sides, including the destruction of the Palestinian town Dir Yassin, Laqueur writes:

"Fighting became more intense and savage, as acts of reprisal followed one another. On 8 April, most of the inhabitants of the Arab village of Dir Yassin on the outskirts of Jerusalem, 254 in number, were killed by a combined IZL-Sternist force. Three days latter, a Jewish medical convoy on its way to the Hadasssa hospital on Mount Scopus was ambushed in the streets of Jerusalem with the loss of seventy-nine doctors, nurses and students. A British force stationed two hundred yards away did not intervene." (p 584)

Another statement from "Steadfest Hope."

"On June 5, 1967, Israel initiated a preemptive strike by bombing and then invading Egypt, Jordan, and Syria with the goal of expanding the boundaries of the state."

Not only had there been constant terrorist attacks against Israel but Egypt began to mass troops along its borders with Israel. Nasser ordered an international peace keeping force to leave. Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israel stopping her flow of oil. Mitchell G. Bard in his book Myths and Facts: A guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict writes that Israel was ringed by a massive troop build up from many Arab countries. Nasser announced :

'The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel...to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not declarations.'

Syrian defense minister Hafez Assad stated that 'I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.'" (p 53-54)

While it is true that dialogue and understanding often being peace, lies, such as these above, bring discord and even persecution. I will continue in some further posts writing about the problems with this material.

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.