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We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence |
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Home  Blog February 2009 February 22, 2009
February 22, 2009: Images and Memories, Nightmares and Dreams
Press Release from the "Assembly of the Catholic Bishops in the Holy Land"
We, the members of the "Assembly of the Catholic Bishops in the Holy Land" deplore and condemn with utter dismay the repulsive attacks on our Lord Jesus Christ and on His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, carried out on Channel 10 of the Israeli television.
In these days, during a night show on Channel 10, a series of horrible offenses were launched against our faith and consequently against us, Christians. The show directed its attacks to the holiest figures of our Christian belief in an attempt, as the director of the show himself specifically declared, to destroy Christianism. In so doing, Channel 10 was used to desecrate the holiest figures of Christianism offending hundreds of thousands of Christian Israeli citizens and of many millions of Christians all over the world as well.
The Catholic Bishops in the Holy Land consider such program a symptom of greater problems disturbing the society, such as intolerance, refusal to accept and respect the other and inherent hatred. More important, the Heads of Churches view this recent incident in the larger context of continuous attacks against Christians throughout Israel over the years. Only a few months ago, copies of the New Testament were publicly burnt in the yard of a synagogue in Or Yehuda. Since years, Christianity has been doing a lot to stop some manifestations of anti-semitism, and now Christians in Israel have to find themselves victimised by a low profile manifestation of anti-Christianism?
While condemning this and all other intolerant acts, we call on all concerned parties to investigate the matter and to take the necessary actions in order to put an end to such horrible desecration of our faith. It is unconceivable that such incidents have to occur in Israel which hosts some of the holiest shrines of Christianity and which rely to a great extent on pilgrimage from Christian Countries.
Therefore, we ask the Israeli people and its Authorities to take the appropriate measures against such unacceptable offense and its perpetrators. At the same time, we urge Channel 10 to acknowledge its responsibility and to officially and publicly apologise for this incident and never to allow its repetition.
We want also to express our understanding and appreciation to the deep reaction of our Christian Communities and Institutions as well as to the many reasonable representatives of Moslems and Jews who were themselves shocked and appalled and expressed their dismay and protest at this fact. Actually such programs have nothing to do with freedom of expression, art and entertainment. They can only work against national integration and harmony in our society.
We call on them all to exercise the utmost seriousness and restraint and to follow their Ecclesial Authorities in dealing with this very important and delicate matter.
Jerusalem, February 18, 2009.
His Beatitude Fouad Twal, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem
His Beatitude Michel Sabbah, Emeritus Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem
His Excellency Elias Chacour, Greek Melkite Archbishop of Akka
His Excellency Paul Sayya, Maronite Archbishop of Haifa
His Excellency Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo, Latin Patriarchal Vicar / Israel
His Excellency Pierre Melki, Syrian Catholic Patriarchal Exarch
His Excellency Yousef Jules Zerey, Greek Melkite Patriarchal Exarch
His Excellency Butros Mouallem, Emeritus Greek Melkite Archbishop of Akka
His Excellency Kamal Bathish, Emeritus Auxiliary Bishop of Latin Patriarch
Fr. Pier Battista Pizzaballa, ofm, Custos of the Holy Land
Msgr. Rafael Minassian, Armenian Catholic Patriarchal Exarch
Fr. Paul Colin, Chaldean Catholic Patriarchal Exarch
Fr. Pietro Felet scj, Secretary General
The offending You Tube is in Hebrew, with Arabic sub-titles, but the images speak for themselves:
اذاعي اسرائيلي يسخر من السيد المسيح والسيدة العذراء
The above caused me to recall what I wrote on July 22, 2007 and October 18, 2007:
“In a nutshell, there is a deep schizophrenia in the Holy Land; what we see, hear and talk. Zionism is the original sin; Zionism is an untouchable icon. You can curse Mohammad, you can curse Mary, but not Zionism.”- Professor Albert Aghazarian, July 19, 2007 during Sabeel’s 2nd International young Adult Conference in Jerusalem:
40 Years in the Wilderness: 40 Years of Occupation
On page A3 of the July 20, 2007 edition of Haaretz that deep schizophrenia was printed in black on newsprint. The page was filled with looking back two years ago at the ‘disengagement’ from the Gaza Strip, which in reality was a redeployment for Israel continued to maintain full control of air, water and sea borders.
The Gush Katif evacuees from the Gaza Strip-who settled there illegally under international law have documented and commemorate what the state destroyed; and under international law, should never have built.
Soldiers in the Kissufim area say some evacuees come back to the roadblock, stand silently at what once was the entrance to the Gush Katif settlement and stare into the distance, with tears in their eyes.
The evacuees are also:
“Planting the desire to return. Rabbi Kobi Bornstein, a former resident of Neveh Dekalim and leader of the anti-disengagement struggle, says, "we are not talking about breaking through fences, but about planting the desire in the people of Israel to return there." Bornstein is sure the Jews will return.
“The willingness to return if possible comes to the fore in the video interview project that Mordi Kirshner is doing for the Settlers' Committee (the umbrella organization of the evacuees). He has filmed 160 out of 300 planned interviews. "We give the person a chance to tell his (or her) story," he says. Kirshner copied the framework from the taping of survivors' testimonies for the Steven Spielberg Holocaust Videotape Archive. He says he treats the interview as testimony.
“The interviews reveal a sense of betrayal felt toward the man seen as the patron of Gush Katif (Ariel Sharon) and disappointment with Israeli society after the disengagement. Many interviewees reported dreams of seeing their former homes and waking up in the morning with a sense of happiness. “
So, I wonder do the settlers even have a clue about the truth and the near 60 years of pain of those who were forced to flee in 1948?
Palestinians left in droves for fear of death by the hands of the Zionists who came to claim their homes and property, and which resulted in creating 750,000 refugees who have now multiplied into the millions; and all have been denied the inalienable right to return to their legally owned property.
On October 18, 2007, I wrote a dream: Wake Up Time from the Holocaust Hangover
"First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they attack you; and that's when you win."-Gandhi
[Jerusalem,
July 22, 2007] I had no clue when I gave 'birth' to my website, exactly
two years ago to this day, what I was really doing, but, after my first
of five journeys to Israel Palestine and listening to many of the
people who live here and seeing with my own eyes the facts on the
ground and feeling in my own gut a little of what life is like under
occupation, I got VERY PISSED OFF and had to DO SOMETHING!
My
government and mainstream media do NOT tell the truth and the spin they
spin makes me want to puke. Not all members of the internationally
recognized transparent democratically elected members of Hamas are
terrorists and democracy cannot be spread through the barrel of a gun.
Criticizing
the Israeli government is not anti-Semitic, just as dissenting from the
neo-con ideology is not unpatriotic; in fact it is much more in line
with our founding fathers;
"Soon
after I had published the pamphlet "Common Sense" [on Feb. 14, 1776] in
America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the
system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of
religion. The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."-Tom Paine
But
what really gets my Irish up, is that so many American Christians have
no clue about the Christian Exodus from the Holy Land which began in
1948 when innocent people were forced to flee from their homes for fear
of their life after they learned of the barbaric terrorism perpetuated
by Zionist imperialist in the massacre at Deir Yassin.
"Early in
the morning of Friday, April 9, 1948, commandos of the Irgun, headed by
Menachem Begin, and the Stern Gang attacked Deir Yassin, a village with
about 750 Palestinian residents. It was several weeks before the end of
the British Mandate. The village lay outside of the area that the
United Nations recommended be included in a future Jewish State. Deir
Yassin had a peaceful reputation and was even said by a Jewish
newspaper to have driven out some Arab militants. But it was located on
high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and one
plan, kept secret until years afterwards, called for it to be destroyed
and the residents evacuated to make way for a small airfield that would
supply the beleaguered Jewish residents of Jerusalem.
By noon
over 100 people, half of them women and children, had been
systematically murdered. Four commandos died at the hands of resisting
Palestinians using old Mausers and muskets. Twenty-five male villagers
were loaded into trucks, paraded through the Zakhron Yosef quarter in
Jerusalem, and then taken to a stone quarry along the road between
Givat Shaul and Deir Yassin and shot to death. The remaining residents
were driven to Arab East Jerusalem.
"That evening the Irgunists
and the Sternists escorted a party of foreign correspondents to a house
at Givat Shaul, a nearby Jewish settlement founded in 1906. Over tea
and cookies they amplified the details of the operation and justified
it, saying Deir Yassin had become a concentration point for Arabs,
including Syrians and Iraqis, planning to attack the western suburbs of
Jerusalem. They said that 25 members of the Haganah militia had
reinforced the attack and claimed that an Arabic-speaking Jew had
warned the villagers over a loudspeaker from an armored car. This was
duly reported in The New York Times on April 10.
"A final body
count of 254 was reported by The New York Times on April 13, a day
after they were finally buried. By then the leaders of the Haganah had
distanced themselves from having participated in the attack and issued
a statement denouncing the dissidents of Irgun and the Stern Gang, just
as they had after the attack on the King David Hotel in July 1946. A
1987 study undertaken by Birzeit University's Center for Research and
Documentation of Palestinian Society found "the numbers of those killed
does not exceed 120".
"The Haganah leaders admitted that the
massacre "disgraced the cause of Jewish fighters and dishonored Jewish
arms and the Jewish flag." They played down the fact that their militia
had reinforced the terrorists' attack, even though they did not
participate in the barbarism and looting during the subsequent "mopping
up" operations.
"They also played down the fact that, in Begin's
words, "Deir Yassin was captured with the knowledge of the Haganah and
with the approval of its commander" as a part of its "plan for
establishing an airfield."
"Ben Gurion even sent an apology to
King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But this horrific act served the future
State of Israel well. According to Begin:
"Arabs throughout the
country, induced to believe wild tales of "Irgun butchery," were seized
with limitless panic and started to flee for their lives. This mass
flight soon developed into a maddened, uncontrollable stampede. The
political and economic significance of this development can hardly be
overestimated." [1]
The Christian Exodus from the Holy Land has
escalated in recent years to reduce their numbers from 20% of the total
population of the Holy Land, to less than 1.3% since 1948. The reasons
for the exodus of the most well educated and consistently nonviolent
members of society are the now 40 years of occupation and oppression
that has resulted in lack of economic opportunities, The Wall which
divides them from their land, resources, families and holy sites and
the increasing sense of hopelessness that fuels militancy and the
growth of fundamentalism within all three branches of Father Abraham's
offspring's.
Palestinians are inherently peaceful people who
have been made to pay for the sins of The Third Reich and it is way
past time for the world to WAKE UP from the holocaust hangover that has
allowed America's best friend in the world to become the biggest bully
on the planet.
International Law demands that occupation is to
be temporary, maintain the status quo, not pilfer the resources of the
occupied, nor transfer the occupier's population into occupied
territory. But Israel does not adhere to international law; they follow
the law of the jungle.
American media reports much about Islamic
fundamentalism, but not on the inherently anti-Semitic cultish and
escapist theology of Christian Zionism or the ultra-Orthodox Jews of
the Holy Land. On July 19, 2007, Haaretz reported "The end of Zionism"
regarding the increasing numbers of youth who refuse to serve.
"Some
young people explain their evasion of service by their loss of
confidence in the leadership, the cases of corruption and the state's
abandonment of its soldiers. But there is also an accumulated weariness
with the state of war, which has already lasted 60 years, and many
young people, along with their parents, are no longer willing to
sacrifice their lives on the altar of the settlers' expansionist dreams.
"After
all, 25 percent of those eligible for the draft never serve at all (11
percent receive exemptions for yeshiva studies, 7 percent for health
reasons, 4 percent reside abroad and 3 percent have a criminal record).
Of those drafted, 17.5 percent do not complete a full three years of
service. The sharpest rise in the number of draft-dodgers is among the
ultra-Orthodox. In 1974, they comprised only 2.4 percent of those
eligible for the draft. Today, the figure is 11 percent.
"Against
this background, it is shocking to learn that yesterday the Knesset
decided to extend the so-called Tal Law…a cynical, immoral law that
absolves a significant portion of Jewish Israelis from the need to
either do army service or work for a living. The fact is that 80
percent of ultra-Orthodox men do not work; instead, they live on
government grants and stipends and the earnings of their wives.
"The
secular donkey does not merely bear the military and economic burden;
it also continues to expand the scope of government support for
ultra-Orthodox education, including even the most extremist strains.
About two months ago, the Knesset, by a large majority, approved the
so-called Nahari Law, which compels the municipalities to grant equal
funding to ultra-Orthodox schools that are not part of the official
education system. These are extremist institutions…they do not teach
mathematics, English, nature, science, civics, geography or history. In
other words, they deliberately fail to train their graduates for a life
of work and productivity. So these graduates have no choice but to
cling to the coattails of ultra-Orthodox activists. And where will the new funding for these extremist schools come from? [2]
Every
day the U.S.A. provides over $7,023,288.00 to the Israeli government
and military and over $108 Billion since 1948. "Generous as it is, what
Israel actually got in U.S. aid is considerably less than what it has
cost U.S. taxpayers to provide it. The principal difference is that so
long as the U.S. runs an annual budget deficit, every dollar of aid the
U.S. gives Israel has to be raised through U.S. government borrowing."-
Richard Curtiss [3]
On July 19, 2007, in the Old City of
Jerusalem, Professor Albert Aghazarian, addressed nearly three dozen
international and Palestinian youth and this reporter who had gathered
for Sabeel's 2nd International young Adult Conference: 40 Years in the
Wilderness…40 Years of Occupation...
He said two things that have not left my conscience since: "In
a nutshell, there is a deep schizophrenia in the Holy Land; what we
see, hear and talk. Zionism is the original sin; Zionism is an
untouchable icon. You can curse Mohammad, you can curse Mary, but not
Zionism…Do your best, and as long as you give it your best shot, don't
worry about the rest."
But injustice is unsustainable and all things must pass...
"There
is a time for everything; a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to
be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a
time for war and a time for peace." –Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 7, 8
1. http://www.deiryassin.org/mas.html
2. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/883868.html
3. http://ifamericansknew.org/stats/usaid.html#source
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"HOPE has two children.The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - Aquinas |
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UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
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The Paradoxical Commandments
by Dr. Kent M. Keith People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway. © 1968, 2001 Kent M. Keith " In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
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“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946 |
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The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright |
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“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK |
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Establishment of Israel |
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"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel
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