Oppenheim Arts & Letters

Israel's Report on the Operation in Gaza (Available)

Israel Ministry of Forein Affairs.  "The Operation in Gaza - 27 Dec 2008 - 18 Jan 2009: Factual and Legal Aspects."  Executive Summary: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Terrorism+and+Islamic+Fundamentalism-/Operation_in_Gaza-Factual_and_Legal_Aspects.htm Report: http://www.mfa.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/E89E699D-A435-491B-B2D0-017675DAFEF7/0/GazaOperation.pdf

U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell has been traveling this week with a refrain about Israeli settlements in the territories comprising a chief obstacle to peace in the Middle East.  In light of the destruction of the lives of Palestinian Jews (that's right: as indigenous there as anyone else) in Gaza in 2005, the result of an appeasing trade of land for peace, fair hand-wringers around the world know there's another and far less vocalized side of the story.

Israel's side.

Funny thing too about Israel's telling of events: it lends itself always to independent questioning, examination, and corroboration.

In the Journals List to the right of this page space, I've listed two or more journalism watchdog sites developed to combat anti-Semitic disinformation and reporting slanted by hostility toward Israel and toward Jews:

"CAMERA" is the Committee for Accuracy in Midde East Reporting in America: http://www.camera.org/

"Honest Reporting" dogs the BBC and other major news outlets and calls them out on misrepresentation and slant as needed: http://www.honestreporting.com/

For any who may have happened upon this page while harboring evil intent for Israel and the Jews, read through the documents cited and the sites mentioned despite those attitudes and feelings, for we know there is no compulsion in religion, that one scholar is more powerful against the Devil than one thousand worshippers, and that we may all race to do good deeds.

Without compulsion, perhaps in a somewhat scholarly way, I'm going to do an extra good deed on this blog this afternoon and add to its listings an online Palestinian news organization: the Ma'an News Agency -- http://www.maannews.net/eng/Default.aspx.

# # #

America's Dividing Jewish "Left"

According to a number of American Jewish leaders, Obama's decision to meet with a hand-picked audience American Jews at the White House on July 13 was a direct response to the Jerusalem Post poll. Obama's senior advisors feared that the massive Israeli mistrust of Obama the poll exposed was liable to spill over into the American Jewish community. [1]

No need to worry, Caroline. 

It has.

I have left America's Jewish Left (and soon also America's Democratic Party).

I'm still the same bearded, long-haired, folksinging, assimilated, socially liberal personality that I was in the 70's, but having encountered over the past two years my share of anti-Semitic argument online, the closed literary system of the Muslim Brotherhood, the same that drives Hamas, and the delusional ideation, frequently callous and dishonest as well, of apologists for Palestinian Arabs, I'm leaping for the pendulum and swinging right, however chancy the odds of finding just the right path between Caliphate and Palinate.

Goodbye, George Soros.

Hello, Daniel Pipes.

I hope I have convinced you at least to some extent that a good argument can be made that Jews are not liberal by blood nor by virtue of the inherent nature of our tradition, but rather are liberal because of ethnic self-interest and by social conditions, especially in Europe and America, over the course of the last two centuries or so. [2] 

Dr. Peter Haas's 2004 talk at Vanderbilt University fairly predicts my predicament, which well may not be related to the mysterious presence in me of an abundance of perhaps ethnically transmitted compassion, empathy, and imagination.  When for merely being Jewish one has encountered snubs, unreasoning and vicious arguments, and numerous Jihadi calls for the destruction of Israel and the obliteration of one's own people, one knows two things above all: 1) history ain't over; 2) history will not keep its grinding maw empty of Jews for long should Jews fail to act vigorously in their own defense.

Reference

1. Glick, Caroline B.  "Large and growing chasm separates leftist US Jews from leftist Israelis."  Jewish World Review, July 31, 2009: http://jewishworldreview.com/0709/glick073109.php3

2. Haas, Peter.  "The Future of Jewish Liberalism."  Speech "on the occassion of honoring Rabbi Randall Falk."  Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, March 28, 2004: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/jewishstudies/Haas%20Talk.htm

# # #

Arresting Time in the Aftermath of a Suicide Bombing

Movies make it exciting.

Television news makes it forgettable.

A photograph, however, makes it stand still.

In the way of the web, I wanted to recall the name of the organization, ZAKA, cited in the previous post, and in the process found a war photographer's blog.  About thirteen months ago, Zoriah photographed the aftermath of a suicide bombing in Anbar Province, Iraq: http://www.zoriah.net/blog/2008/06/anbar-province.html.

At first, I confess, I thought I was looking over an event in Israel--old men wearing shawls, the legs of a man with slim black shooes on his feet; who could tell from that?  As I prepared to share the Zoriah site with you, I did the little bit of reading required: without the words, the same photograph could prove emblemmatic for many places.

Some time ago, I picked this up, loosely recalled, from a visit to the NASA Observation Group page: "If you look at a picture and think you have seen it, look again."

On first glance, I missed the one picture of two unidentifiable Marines that lost the journalist his embed privileges in Iraq . . . .

It was just 148 years ago that Matthew Brady's assigned photographer Alexander Gardner reached the Antietam battlefield at Sharpsburg, Maryland in time to photograph the dead before burial crews swept through the area.

Shocking at the time--the first ever of battlefield carnage--and in stereoscope, they may have set the tone for both objective and always gutsier war photography.

In today's information battlespace, the war image has become a convenient raw element for the fashioning of "spin" by partisan rhetoricians.  My principle: the photographer must write a completely accurate and honest caption for his work plus, and, this one way or the other, keep the context of the work clear.

With that for a start, however, there remains much to argue.  I'm not going to tackle the issue but may refer readers to a classic in the field, Phillip Knightley's The First Casualty: From the Crimea to Vietnam: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist, and Myth Maker (New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch 1975).

In consideration of what the Islamists have brought to Islam (also New York, Madrid, London, Islamabad, Mumbai, Mogadishu, and elsewhere), also the history of war photography in general, and perhaps the need to continue emphasizing (as may the "X-Ray Project" listed in the left-hand sidebar) just the plain ugly reality for humanity of every suicide bombing or other attack, I'm going to post this.

Reference

Gardner, Alexander.  "Antietam, Maryland. Confederate soldiers as they fell near the Burnside bridge."  LCC title.  September 1862.

# # #

New Jersey - In the Spirit of Bugsy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I'll be watching this one with the anti-Semites (who will overlook every other corruption scandal buried in the recent history of the Garden State to concentrate on the indicted rabbis).

 

About that illegal trade in kidneys: so far, the marks, or victims, were Israelis offered $10,000 to give one up for a buyer paying $164,000 for the organ.  Nice margin, as Rachel Maddow says in her above featured show.

 

In day to day Israel, and in the address of conflict-related violence, the Jews believe the body holy in all its parts and strive to recover all (and identify the rightful owners of the same) in death.  "Zaka" is the name of the organization that does that -- http://www.zaka.org.il/index_e.php -- and Wikipedia offers page on it as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZAKA.

 

# # #

Jordan - No Heart for the Arab Brother?

Jordanian authorities have started revoking the citizenship of thousands of Palestinians living in Jordan to avoid a situation in which they would be "resettled" permanently in the kingdom, Jordanian and Palestinian officials revealed on Monday.

The new measure has increased tensions between Jordanians and Palestinians, who make up around 70 percent of the kingdom's population.

The tensions reached their peak over the weekend when tens of thousands of fans of Jordan's Al-Faisali soccer team chanted slogans condemning Palestinians as traitors and collaborators with Israel. Al-Faisali was playing the rival Wihdat soccer team, made up of Jordanian-Palestinians, in the Jordanian town of Zarqa. [1]

One may wonder who in the Arab refugee "leadership" club colluded with Jordan to further disposses Jordan's share of a much beleaguered population of their hard won enfranchisement.

Here's another bone, same story:

Reports in a number of Jordanian newspapers said that the Jordanian fans also chanted anti-Palestinian slogans and cursed Palestine, the PLO, Jerusalem and the Aksa Mosque.

Whether or not it's hearsay (most of the time, I try to provide a good source more directly), the day may come when Arab refugees in Israel may wish to reconsider many, many things including where to place their hearts, their minds, and their loyalty, for even Jordan's Arabs would seem inclined to turn them out.

The soccer team of Bnei Sakhnin made sporting history on May 18, 2004, when it became the first non-Jewish soccer club to win the Israeli soccer championship by beating Hapoel Haifa 4-1 at the Ramat Gan national stadium. In front of 35,000 spectators - the majority supporting Bnei Sakhnin, a town with a population of 21,300 - Haifa led 1-0 at half-time but Avi Danan, Lior Asulin and Gavriel Lima all scored during the second half to seal the victory. The win guarantees Bnei Sakhnin a place in the European soccer championship in 2004-2005. [2]

Well, of course, that works for the fully enfranchised Arab citizens of Israel.

This may be more indicative of the treatment of the refugees:

Source: YouTube poster "ayyadmed".  "A response to Israeli Cellcom advert."  July 20, 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et8VGyCDt10

And here is a way of interpreting what you just watched (or will or may):

The row over a controversial advert for an Israeli mobile phone operator, which shows Israel Defense Forces soldiers playing soccer with Palestinians on both sides of the security barrier, continues.

In the Cellcom advert, IDF soldiers on patrol along the fence stop their jeep when it is hit by a soccer ball from the Palestinian side of the fence. The ball soon bounces back to the Israeli side, at which point the soldiers decide to hold an impromptu game with the Palestinians, cheered on by female soldiers. [3]

I'd like to buy the world a Coke also (and keep stones of baked clay from falling from the air).

Funny thing is . . . as much may be done, but it must be done by those who most want a genuine,  enjoyable, and unbreakable bond in peace.

Reference

1. Toameh, Khaled Abu.  "Amman revoking Palestinians' citizenship."  The Jerusalem Post, July 20, 2009: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443863400&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

2. Jewish Virtual Library.  "Arab Israeli Soccer Club Makes History (May 18, 2004)": http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/soccer.html

3. Yaron, Oded.  "Soccer game or tear gas?  Palestinians put controversial ad to test."  Haaretz, July 22, 2009: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1102059.html

# # #

Nonie Darwish on Huffed Out "Soraya M"

Furthermore, it’s clear that Ms. Auerbach is unaware of the famous book of the same title upon which the movie is based. Written by French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam in 1990, it became an international bestseller. All those who follow human rights and women’s rights issues in Iran are aware of the book and its impact. Ms. Auerbach is apparently very concerned that the film portrays Iranians “as barbaric, bloodthirsty savages.” I cannot understand why she is more concerned about the reputation of Iran than the atrocity of stoning people to death there. The movie never generalizes about Iranians. It’s a cheap shot by her to criticize a well-done movie that stands for human rights.

Darwish, Nonie.  "The Silencing of Soraya M."  FrontPage Magazine, July 17, 2009: http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35597

IMDB.  "The Stoning of Soraya M." (2008) Videos - Beta: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1277737/videogallery

Rainer, Peter.  "Review: 'The Stoning of Soraya M.'"  The Christian Science Monitor, July 20, 2009: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0721/p17s03-almo.html

# # #

Hawk's Bill - Ralph Peters' Observe-Intuit Vision

Fifth, we have become largely a white-collar, suburban society in which a child’s bloody nose is no longer a routine part of growing up, but grounds for a lawsuit; the privileged among us have lost the sense of grit in daily life. We grow up believing that safety from harm is a right that others are bound to respect as we do. Our rising generation of political leaders assumes that, if anyone wishes to do us harm, it must be the result of a misunderstanding that can be resolved by that lethal narcotic of the chattering classes, dialogue. [1]

For points one through four, access the referenced article by Ralph Peters.

Any creative writer worth his little bit of salt--and one may add actors, jazz musicians and other composers who venture down into the tangles of the wild side, and painters--best have a connection with nature and the primitive if they're going to do as the shaman do and transmit their little part of the divine or infenally divine through their vessels.

Muhammad led his impressionable band first and foremost as a general.

Perhaps contemporary generals and journalists had best now do some primitive connecting as well.

"You are reading into the Quran all wrong," Sheikh Muumen charged.  "The difference between suicide and being killed as a martyr in a suicide attack is huge.  A person who commits suicide kills a soul, a spirit, a person and this is completely forbidden by Allah who creates us and has the right to decide when our life comes to its end."

"Killing yourself in suicide is a sin but killing yourself in suicide as part of suicide bombing attack against the enemy is not forbidden because in the attack you kill those who are considered by Islam the enemy of Allah and of Islam."

The humorous title of Ralph Klein's record of conversations with known jihad and intifada leaders belies a serious contemporary record of Islamofascism, intellectual theft, and twisted and twisting ideation. 

Published in 2007, Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal Their Global Plans--To A Jew!, the underlying themes, including some highlighting of a sort of infamous Jewish patience and tolerance in the face of aggression and the general evil represented by various and related underplayed crimes against Israel, have not changed one tiny bit.

Charming place, Israel: how bad has it been for a while?

Israeli police units screen visitors and strongly suggest Jewish men do not wear their kipas, or scull caps, on the Mount.  That's right.  In the Jewish state, Jewish police ask Jews to remove their religious Jewish kipas before ascending the holiest site in Judaism for fear of offending the Muslims.  It's absolute madness.

Forgive me, Aaron, I didn't know.

Of course, now that I know, what next--repeated expressions of outrage?

What is next is continued encouragement for any concerned to illuminate the characteristics, habits of mind, and hostile initiatives associated with Islamic language and thought.

There is no other way.

Some figures in Islam--I have in mind Aga Khan--understand the necessity for flexibility, pluralism, and tolerance in modern life.  I'll refer you to his main base for further exploration: Aga Khan Development Network: http://www.akdn.org/ 

Others, and I think I may name by way of example Anwaar Hussein at http://truthspring.info/, who seems to work hard on the challenge of being good and formulating commentary and policies to that effect, certainly engage an introspective and soul-searching approaches to ethical, political, and spiritual development--there is something such Muslims have much in common with Jews.

I may mention Nonie Darwish too (http://www.noniedarwish.com/) but will refrain from expanding my list of both progressive and reforming personalities in Islam (I've published as much two or three or more times here), for there is much other and unimpeded talk fronting or making way for the murder of innocents.

It is one thing to not know of something and, perhaps, not care to know, ignorance providing a first protective bubble in the form of blissful unawareness; it is another to know of an evil and to look away or, far worse, deny its presence.

Reference

1. Peters, Ralph. "Wishful Thinking and Indecisive Wars." The Journal of International Security Affairs, Spring 2009:16: http://www.securityaffairs.org/issues/2009/16/peters.php.

2. Klein, Aaron.  Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Lnad, Jihadists Reveal Their Global Plans--To A Jew!  Los Angeles: WND Books, World Ahead Media, 2007.

# # #

Racing Backwards - Obama's Track Record

Obama's Kenyan birth father: In Islam, religion passes from the father to the child. Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. (1936–1982) was a Muslim who named his boy Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. Only Muslim children are named "Hussein".

Obama's Indonesian family: His stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, was also a Muslim. In fact, as Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng explained to Jodi Kantor of the New York Times: "My whole family was Muslim, and most of the people I knew were Muslim." An Indonesian publication, the Banjarmasin Post reports a former classmate, Rony Amir, recalling that "All the relatives of Barry's father were very devout Muslims." [1]

* * *

Much of the scrutiny surrounding Obama's long list of objectionable and radical alliances has focused on Khalidi, and with good reason. Despite Khalidi's claims to the contrary, facts indicate that he was a spokesman for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) during the late 1970s and early 1980s, when it was listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department. (Khalidi's wife Mona also worked for the PLO's press agency, Wikalat al-Anba al-Filastinija, or WAFA, during that time and like her husband, is now at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs). [2]

* * *

The FBI is severing its once-close ties with the nation's largest Muslim advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, amid mounting evidence that it has links to a support network for Hamas.

All local chapters of CAIR have been shunned in the wake of a 15-year FBI investigation that culminated with the conviction in December of Hamas fundraisers at a trial where CAIR itself was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator.

The U.S. government has designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. [3]

* * *

This meeting today follows yesterday's official decision by FBIHQ to use ISNA as their official point of contact with the American Muslim community. ISNA is one of the largest and most prominent Muslim Brotherhood entities in the US. The Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 with two objectives (which are their same two objectives today): implement Islamic Law and re-establish the global Islamic Caliphate. Their creed, which is still their creed today, includes "...martyrdom in the way of Allah is our highest inspiration." [4]

* * *

Instead, then, let us review a related subject – Obama's connections and even indebtedness, throughout his career, to extremist Islam. Specifically, he has longstanding, if indirect ties to two institutions, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), listed by the U.S. government in 2007 as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-funding trial; and the Nation of Islam (NoI), condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for its "consistent record of racism and anti-Semitism." [5]

In the October 2008 filing, Pipes' lists Khalid al-Mansour, Kenny Gamble (" . . . an Islamist who buys large swaths of real estate in Philadelphia to create a Muslim-only residential area."), Mazen Asbahi (" . . . Obama campaign's first Muslim outreach coordinator resigned after it came to light that he had served on the board of a subsidiary of the Saudi-sponsored North American Islamic Trust . . . ."), Minha Husaini (" . . . has an Islamist background, having served as an intern in the Muslim Public Service Network . . . .") and others who have associated themselves with fringe elements on the Islamist Front.   

For an example of linkage, one may offer this:

Federal prosecutors have named three prominent Islamic organizations in America as participants in an alleged criminal conspiracy to support a Palestinian Arab terrorist group, Hamas.

Prosecutors applied the label of "unindicted co-conspirator" to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, and the North American Islamic Trust in connection with a trial planned in Texas next month for five officials of a defunct charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

While the foundation was charged in the case, which was filed in 2004, none of the other groups was. However, the co-conspirator designation could be a blow to the credibility of the national Islamic organizations, which often work hand-in-hand with government officials engaged in outreach to the Muslim community. [6]

* * *

I'm a registered Democrat and have called myself a liberal one most of my life, but the egalitarian ideals with which I grew up would seem not recognized by today's party.  Israel, a modern state struggling against Arab anti-Semitism and violence along with Islamic Jihad out of Gaza, has been branded fascist (what: to keep from being burned alive as Jews were in their cars by Arab villages circa 1948?), and I feel flipped into some kind of arch-conservative that I have never been and cannot embrace.

Unfortunately, the truth is other: my ideals have not changed, but something about America or American politics has, and frighteningly so.

* * *

"And this is our charge today - we have to keep working until Allah (swt) has allowed us, us today in the United States and around the world, living in this blessed time, that we have the honor of working to reestablish Allah's (swt) word supreme on this earth, we have the honor of sharing solutions that no one else has. We have to take advantage of this and be inspired - that if they offer us the sun, or the moon, or a nice raise, or a passport, or a house in the suburbs or even a place to pray at the job - on the condition that we stop calling for Islam as a complete way of life - we should never do that, ever do that unless and until Islam becomes victorious or we die in the attempt." [7]

Those words were spoken yesterday, July 19, 2009 at a conference sponsored by Hizb ut-Tahrir outside of Chicago.  Citation number 7 sports a video of the speaker issuing the above proclamation.

* * *

This was the very first meeting with Jewish community's leaders. Earlier requests for an audience with major Jewish organizations had reportedly been ignored. Six months after taking office the president finally got around to issuing an invitation to stop the bleeding. Increasing numbers of Jews even among the overwhelming number who voted for Obama have been voicing serious concern about his real agenda.

The meeting, however, did not showcase the president's trademark engagement and dialogue routine. Instead, he decided to cherry pick his Jewish audience to include pro-Obama newcomers with little support in the mainstream Jewish world, such as J Street, while blackballing the Zionist Organization of America. The oldest pro-Israel group in the United States, with a Washington office second in size only to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), was not a voice Obama wanted to hear. This leaves the president willing to engage Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but not ZOA President Mort Klein. [8]

For this post, I've started in the middle, gone backwards, come forward, lifting, juxtaposing, planting rabbit holes and tall mirrors, but here I shall stop quoting other feeds: premise, process, and conclusion would seem clear enough.

I hold out hope that President Obama may be duplicitous and ingenuine, however convincing, about realignment not merely with Islam in its comparably quiet majority but with the Islam that contributes to Hamas and, ultimately, the imposition of laws imposing on all humanity a most medieval, even primitive, perception of humanity and a treatment of it fully congruent with that vision.

Cited Reference

1. Pipes, Daniel.  "Barack Obama's Muslim Childhood."  FrontPageMagazine.com via danielpipes.org, April 29, 2008: http://www.danielpipes.org/5544/barack-obamas-muslim-childhood

2. Stillwell, Cinnamon.  "Obama's Middle East Studies Mentors."  American Thinker, November 2, 2008: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/obamas_middle_east_studies_men.html

3. Abrams, Joseph.  "FBI Cuts Ties with CAIR Following Terror Financing Trial."  Fox News, January 30, 2009: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/30/fbi-cut-ties-cair-following-terror-financing-trial/

4. Spencer, Robert.  "FBI initiates official outreach to Hamas."  Jihad Watch, June 24, 2009: http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/026724.php

5. Pipes, Daniel.  "Obama Would Fail Security Clearance."  Philadelphia Bulletin via danielpipes.org, October 21, 2008: http://www.danielpipes.org/5983/obama-would-fail-security-clearance

6. Gerstein, Josh.  "Islamic Groups Named in Hamas Funding Case."  The New York Sun via Investigative Project on Terrorism, June 4, 2007: http://www.investigativeproject.org/213/islamic-groups-named-in-hamas-funding-case

7. Adil, Imam Jaleel Abdul Adil, as transcribed by IPT News in its article, "Hizb ut-Tahrir: Spread Islam or Die Trying."  IPT News, July 19, 2009: http://www.investigativeproject.org/1098/hizb-ut-tahrir-spread-islam-or-die-trying

8. Bayefsky, Anne.  "Jewish community's denial about Obama must stop."  Jewish World Review, July 20, 2009: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0709/bayefsky072009.php3

Other Reference

CAIR.  "Poll: 89 Percent of Muslim Voters Picked Obama."  November 17, 2008: http://www.cair.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?ArticleID=25591&name=n&currPage=1&Active=1

Hamas.  "The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement."  The Avalon Project, August 18, 1988: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp

Pipes, Daniel.  "More on the Links between Obama and Extremist Islam."  Daniel Pipes Blog, October 21, 2008: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2008/10/more-on-the-links-between-obama-and

# # #

Israel - In the Wake of an Occupation

Shatara claimed to me even though he drew Israel into battle at the church, he was a good Christian: "I am a Christian and I am proud to be Christian.  Now saying this I want to add that Christians and Muslims, we are the same people, we are one big family."

I asked Shatara how as a Christian he can possibly justify bringing violence to the believed birthplace of Jesus.

"When the Israelis launched their operation and encircled Bethlehem we found ourselves having no choice, no other place to run away to but the church.  We did not desecrate the church.  You should understand that the Israelis were the ones who obliged us to find a shelter in the church."

Klein, Aaron.  Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Lnad, Jihadists Reveal their Global Plans--To A Jew!  Los Angeles: WND Books, World Ahead Media, 2007.

On Aril 2, 2002, on orders from Yasar Arafat's Palistinian Authority, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades occupied Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity as a sanctuary to which to draw IDF forces who were then carrying out hundreds of arrests of terrorists in the city.

Contrary to Shatar's claim, the Church was desecrated and strikingly so:

"About the conditions in which we left the church, it is true there was a lot of dirt," admitted terrorist Jihad Jaara five years later, speaking to me from exile in Ireland.

Klein notes the many Christians of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade were "mostly Christians by consequence of birth only" and many grew up attending Muslim schools.

In addition to "dirt"--we may imagine what that means--the occupiers looted the church of gold, prayer books, and crosses.  Living quarters were set on fire on May 2, 2002 (" . . . an IDF blimp showed the church windows were blown outward by the heat of the fire, indicating the flames could not have been set by IDF forces, who would have broken the glass inward with firebombs, bullets, or flares").

Immediately following the end to the siege, angry Orthodox priests showed reporters about twenty empty bottles of whiskey, champagne, vodka, cognac, and French wine.

This has not been lifted from Klein's book:

It was the stench that finally drove Jihad Abu-Qamil out of the Church of the Nativity, besieged by the Israelis for almost three weeks. The 16-year-old who looks no older than 12, ran away from the church, giving himself up to the soldiers.

He is the only person who has emerged to tell the tale of squalor and defiance in one of Christendom's most holy places, built on the site of Jesus's birth.

Philps, Alan.  "Survivor's Tale of the siege of Bethlahem." Telegraph UK, April 20, 2002: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/1391612/Survivors-tale-of-the-siege-of-Bethlehem.html

You know who I believe: I trust the Jew to tell the truth whether or not it serves him.

Here it would seem that Alan Philps' report, a part of the dramatic and authentic coverage of the day, corroborates Klein's retelling.

Additional Online Reference

"What Happened at the Church of the Nativity in April 2002?"  PalestineFacts.org, 2009: http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1991to_now_church_nativity_2002.php

"Occupation of the Church of the Nativity: Are Muslims "desecrating" one of Christianity's holiest places?"  About.com, April 22, 2002: http://islam.about.com/library/weekly/aa042202a.htm

Minerbi, Sergio.  "The Vatican and the Standoff at the Church of the Nativity."  Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, March 15, 2004: http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp515.htm

Wikipedia.  "Siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_the_Church_of_the_Nativity_in_Bethlehem

# # #

Israel - Film People and the Haredi

Our biggest thrill of the day: We ran into a protest in which over 100 Ultra Orthodox Jews were blocking the way into a parking garage which was open on Shabbat. I jumped into the fray to take some close up photos of the sit in. (Don’t worry, I wasn’t the only photographer snapping pics.)

"News from Jerusalem Film Festival."  For the Love Of Movies, July 11, 2009: http://www.fortheloveofmovies.net/jerusalem

In the way of the web, an online friend put up a personal office at http://www.zoetrope.com, invited me to it, put up a small discussion citing an online promotion for a documentary about film criticism, For The Love Of The Movies, and a quick click to it and another click on a recent headline and . . . whaddayaknow: I've been returned to the "haredi" in Jerusalem and their Sabbath defense of the sanctity of the Sabbath but with a picture from another perspective: My, how colorful they are!

One eleven year-old boy jumped out of the crowd and started screaming “Shiksa” into my face. At that point, the police showed up, dressed in full riot gear and started to move the protesters away from the garage opening.

Now don't tease the Lions, please--just run along and play.

I referred to the haredi and their protest recently in "Jews, Muslims, and the Hall of Dark Mirrors" (http://commart.typepad.com/oppenheim_arts_letters/2009/07/jews-muslims-and-the-halls-of-dark-mirrors.html) not imagining I would be back to it so soon and in such a different context.

As I have been keeping a good Sabbath--all electronics down, lights out, candles, wine, prayers, and a fair full day of grazing, reading, and rest (no chores, no shopping, no Internet, no driving, nothing but the deepest retreat and meditation)--I don't know that I would feel so inclined to make someone else share it that I would care to break it. 

I'd save my protest for Sunday at the very least, and, truth to tell, a busy Monday would be best for blocking a parking garage.

On the other hand, believing in God and that the Sabbath is indeed a part of an ancient compact and a window into the soul of Judaism, I should not care to lose it and may appreciate quite the efforts others make--and that Jews make to accommodate them also--to preserve one day for God and soul.

Whether taken Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, perhaps the day apart from the world is the day through which humanity rediscovers its humanity--or should.

While a sit-in blocking a parking lot may look funny or dramatic in a most Jewish way, staying away from parking lots altogether for a day may not look like anything at all, but then in art and life it is "negative space"--absence of content--that frames and highlights that which exists.

We don't need parking lots nearly as much as we need our individual and collective share of natural and unpotentiated time and space.

Bhuddist, Christian, Hindu, Jew, or Muslim, faith has its interior passages, and what it may mean to live within an aligned "atmosphere" as an overarching geopolitical reality may be worth more consideration than we have yet given it--not toward the creation of that atmosphere either, but counterintuitively away from it.

For all intents, and with the excpetion of a "blue law" or two, a fair part of America has done away with the Christian Sunday: gasoline stations, retailors of all stripe, restaurants, and amusement parks rake in their due on someone's Sabbath.  Presumably other someones appreciate having the work and the proceeds.  While the world continues working, others, as predictably, remove themselves to the golf course or church (the same thing for many) and others may simply laze a few more hours in bed--and later brood over NASCAR with a brew.

As mine is both a Jewish and literary household, I find coffee, a fair breakfast, and few books plenty for a day--and may that day in retreat pass by much appreciated and far from business and worries, for when one is ready to resume, all will still be there the following day even though one may see it all changed and strange.

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