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The Walls of Berlin and Bil'in |
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Garth Hewitt: From the Broken Heart Of Gaza |
FACTS ABOUT THE WALL from friends in Bethlehem
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Eileen Fleming's Biography
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Home Blog September 2009 September11, 2009
September 11, 2009: This 9/11 Sept. 15: UPDATE @ END: US Gov. Translation of Bin Laden Message
I could not sleep much last night: images of THAT DAY eight years ago were all I dreamt of.
Every time I awoke it was to images of a Divided Congress at President Obama's Health Care Speech the other night.
BUT this morning it was The Beatles and my memories of July 2005 that filled my head and brought comfort to my weary spirit and once again; I am led to repeat myself with HOPE for US to TIKKUN this world:
[Click the pix one time to hear the music]
LET
IT BE -Naked
REVOLUTION
TIKKUN is Hebrew for mend, repair and transform the world.
TIKKUN
is also an an international community of people of many faiths calling
for social justice and political freedom in the context of new
structures of work, caring communities, and democratic social and
economic arrangements. We seek to influence public discourse in order
to inspire compassion, generosity, non-violence and recognition of the
spiritual dimensions of life.
What
follows
is my experience of
July 2005 at TIKKUN's first conference for Spiritual Progressives which
I attended 3 weeks after my first trip to Israel Palestine and I returned from my seventh in June 2009.
Everything that follows actually happened-but as I was writing fiction in
2005-I wrote it all down in this chapter through the fictional character Jack Hunt of KEEP HOPE ALIVE
Chapter 12: THE REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN...
“The Revolution starts now, when you rise above your fear and tear the walls round you down.”-Steve Earle
On
Wednesday, July 20, 2005, in Berkeley, California, Jack intuitively
sensed opportunity blowing in the wind as he rounded the corner from
Durant and Telegraph on his way to UC Berkeley’s MLK student union
building for TIKKUN’s first annual conference on spiritual activism. As
he crossed Bancroft Way, a young, beatifically-smiling latte-skinned
youth handed him an electric green slip of paper announcing:
“Compassionate Caregivers: Medical Cannabis. Two locations, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week.”
Jack
mused, “Now that my third anti-inflammatory has been pulled, I can’t do
narcotics in moderation, and I am not ready for joint replacement; I
wonder if maybe this is an invitation from You to move out here?”
Jack
soon forgot all about the aches in his joints--in particular, his
knees, which had been crushed in an auto accident when he was
twenty-three and then again at twenty-six. The MLK student union
building was jammed with people from all faiths, and those who were
spiritual, but not religious, who were imagining a new bottom line for
America and her true place in the global village. Jack glided up the
stairs to the second floor and deeply inhaled the energy emanating from
over thirteen hundred American citizens who had gathered in the Pauley
Ballroom in support of a new bottom line based on love, compassion,
caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity, and behavior; and motivated
by generosity, kindness, cooperation, nonviolence, and peace.
Jack
imagined a society that honored all human beings as embodiments of the
sacred, a society that enhanced one’s capacities to respond to the
earth and the universe with awe, wonder, and radical amazement. He
imagined the Kingdom of God, where men would turn their swords into
plowshares and not make war anymore.
The
invocation was offered by Father Louis Vitale, a Franciscan who
reminded Jack of one of the least of the seven dwarves, until he spoke
and revealed himself to be a man of profound wisdom, enrobed in
well-worn burlap:
“The
Holy One has called on us. In all of earth’s sixty-five-million-year
history, we are living in the most dangerous of times. The fact that a
bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and two hundred thousand lives were
vaporized within twenty minutes has not prevented man from dreaming up
more ways to fill space with weapons of mass destruction. We were not
created for militarism, but to turn our swords into plowshares. We have
arrived here today by no accident. We have been summoned by the
universe to claim the highest common ground. As the Dali Lama said, the
radicalism of our age is to be compassionate human beings. We have been
called to bring love and compassion back into the equation and assist
others to connect with the deepest parts of themselves. Now is the time
to realize, as never before, that when any of us suffer, we all suffer.
All life is interconnected, interdependent, and greatly loved by the
creator, the sustainer of the universe. We are called by love, for
love, and to love.”
Professor
Nagler, M.C. and scholar, stoked the fire of hope within Jack. “We are
not facing a spiritual crisis, but a spiritual opportunity. We offer
the power of moral ideas to a country with a lot of religion yet which
suffers from a great lack of spirituality and imagination. As William
Blake said, ‘Imagination is evidence of The Divine.’ And spirituality
is how we grow in sensitivity to ourselves, the other, and to God.
Einstein wrote, ‘Human beings are limited in time and space. We
experience ourselves in an optical delusion. We see ourselves as
separate from others. Our task must be to free ourselves from our
prison of self. Only through compassion can we begin to embrace all of
Creation.’ The bumper sticker got it right; we are spiritual beings
having a human experience.”
George
Lakoff, the author of Don’t Think of an Elephant, affirmed what Jack
already knew, that a nurturing parent raises a child as best they can
to be responsible to self and others. A nurturing parent is not
permissive or overindulgent, but models cooperation and honesty, and
understands that everything is grace, an unconditional gift from God
that one is free to accept or reject. Lakoff spoke about God as father,
mother, all-knowing, all-good, all–powerful, and the source of the free
gift of grace that will open one up to God in the world. Jack thought
of Father Matthew Fox’s recent publication, A New Reformation.
During
Pentecost week, in 2005, Father Fox traveled to Wittenburg and nailed a
new ninety-five theses to the church door, where Luther had nailed his
five hundred years before. Father Fox wrote Jack’s heart about an
interfaith collaboration and community that intuits God as
mother-father God of divine wisdom, and understands that the earth
itself is to be tended; its health is just as much a moral imperative
for us all as our human relationships. Jack had long ago rejected the
concept of a punitive father God and understood that nature is God’s
primary temple, and war the greatest abomination.
Jack’s
mind wandered to the leper kisser, Francis of Assisi, and Jack thought,
Frankie, you sang of sister moon and brother sun, and stood up to the
dry rot and rigid religious sclerosis of the church in the twelfth
century. I feel your presence here today in my bones, as much as in my
soul. Jack went deeper into the silence and in his mind, saw himself at
nine with Father Tony, the diminutive ancient Spanish priest, who had
held his hand all during his mother’s funeral and chanted softly
without ceasing, “Jesus called God Abba, and that means both daddy and
mommy. So, God is both mommy and daddy, and now your mommy is a part of
God. God is mommy and daddy: daddy and mommy divine.”
Jack
mused, “That and the daily readings are the best things I ever heard
from the Roman Church.” The heat from thirteen hundred bodies and the
noonday sun made Jack fidgety, and even though his knees were aching
most ferociously, he still craved a run, but as usual, was grateful for
a fast walk. In seconds, he had escaped the crowd in Sproul Plaza and
wandered around the rolling tree-canopied campus as endorphins flooded
his blood; he no longer was aware of the crushing of bone on bone in
his knees. He escaped in his mind to the good times before that Tuesday
in September nearly four years ago, when his wife, Julianne, had been
vaporized in a stairwell in the Twin Towers.
At
the first thought of that day when life all changed, Jack immediately
roused himself back to reality, sat down, and again became aware of the
aching in his knees. He pulled out the itinerary for the conference and
thought, I need to figure out where I want to be these next few hours.
I’d like to catch some of all these workshops and groups, but there are
just too many choices. I’ll start with “Environmental Policy,” and then
check out “Sacred Stewardship of the Earth,” and maybe move onto
“Theory and Practice of Nonviolence”--no, better yet, “Science and
Spirit.”
Jack
absorbed what he could from each class, but could not sit still until 8
p.m. when Rev. Jim Wallis commanded his attention back in the Pauley
Ballroom. “Religion’s job is to pull out our best stuff; to help us be
our best selves. Religion in America has been used and abused to
control and manipulate millions of Christians.
“The
good news is that there are millions more who are not represented by
the Falwells and the Dobsons, and they are raising their voices and
doing something about confronting the hijacking of the Bible to further
political gain. All faith traditions battle with fundamentalism.
Religion is meant to be a bridge, not a wedge.
“The
seduction of the religious right by politicians is being challenged by
our rapidly spreading grassroots sojourners community that stands up
with a firm moral center and echoes Lincoln’s refrain: what is needed
today is reflection, penitence, humility, accountability, and that we
should all seek to be on God’s side.
“There
are over three thousand verses in the Bible referring to the poor; this
is the moral issue of our time. There are also the moral issues of
poverty, ecology, and war; it is the church’s job to address these
moral issues, too. Separation of church and state does not mean the
segregation of religion from the human dialogue?
“Our
deepest choices are between hope and compassion. Hope is not a feeling
or a state of mind, but an abiding choice you make because you have
faith. Faith is supposed to change things that look impossible to be
changed. Cynicism sees the world as it is and gives up trying to change
it. Cynicism is a buffer against commitment.
“History
testifies to the fact that all great changes came about by social
justice movements that were based on faith and religious values.
America has a proud history of progressive spiritual activism. We are
the ones we have been waiting for. We can change the nation when we
change the wind, and people of faith are called to be wind changers.”
Wallis
took a deep breath before continuing. “Let me explain exactly what an
evangelical Christian is to be about. My evangelical roots are
connected to the path laid down by evangelicals from the 19th century.
They were the first to speak out against slavery and were the first
supporters of female suffrage. In fact, the original altar call was the
call to stand up against slavery.
“In
this century, we are faced with nuclear weapons and the fact that the
arms race put the world in grave danger. The world went to sleep, and
now we have escalating proliferation, nations, and groups of angry
people with nuclear warheads. The real security threat is coming from
the gathering terrorists who are acquiring unsecured materials.” Jim
Wallis took another deep breath and ended with “Activists must be
contemplatives, and contemplatives must act. The time has come for the
Christian Right to meet the right Christians.”
After
a standing ovation for Wallis, the radiant Rabbi Lerner approached the
lectern and beamed like a lighthouse turned on, and between his smile,
said, “This is a historic event. Over thirteen hundred of you are here
now, and we had to turn people away because we ran out of room. There
is a hunger in America for deep spiritual truth, and the wisdom of the
ages is again being spoken and heard. The time has come for the new
bottom line. The new bottom line in society challenges the dominant
ethos of materialism and selfishness and replaces it with institutions
based not just on productivity, but also on cooperation, mutuality,
love, caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity, and awe and wonder at
the grandeur of creation. We spiritual progressives challenge the
misuse of God and religion by the Religious Right, just as we challenge
those liberals and progressives who have been unsympathetic, even
hostile, to spiritual and religious people.
“We
of many faiths, and the spiritual but not religious, are calling for
social justice and political freedom in the context of new structures
of work, in caring communities and democratic social and economic
arrangements. We of many faiths and those who are spiritual but not
religious are inspired by compassion, generosity, nonviolence, and
recognition of the spiritual dimension of life. We agree we desire a
society that promotes love and generosity, recognizes the unity of all
being, and understands our interdependence with all other people on the
planet. We honor, with awe, wonder, and care, all of creation. We are
extending the invitation to every church, synagogue, mosque, and ashram
to affirm the prophetic vision of God as the champion of love,
generosity, peace, social justice, and ecological sanity. We understand
we are to give our highest attention to alleviating the suffering of
the poor and powerless. We challenge the policies of governments and
political parties that do not promote these values. The new bottom line
replaces the old one based upon materialism and selfishness. The time
has come; the time is now.”
Jack
reflected, “One reason the religious right is the only voice the
mainstream media presents is that they have been the most vocal. The
other problem is that the liberal and progressive media have only heard
religion according to the right, so no wonder they tune religion out. I
wonder how to get around it; how does a new voice rise out of the
wilderness?”
The
following day, Jack woke up still thinking about all he had experienced
the day before. That Thursday morning, he heard Rick Uff ord-Chase for
the first time, and was blown away by how such a young man had
accomplished so much. Rick was a founder of the Samaritans,
co-moderator of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, a reservist for
Christian Peacemakers Teams, and moderator of the 216th General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church.
Rick
began with Isaiah 58: “‘Shout it out, do not hold back. Raise your
voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people 'loosen the chains of
injustice and set the oppressed free, share your food with the hungry
and provide the poor wanderer with shelter--when you see the naked,
clothe them and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and
satisfy the needs of the oppressed, your light will rise in the
darkness and your night will become like the noonday sun.’”
Then
Rick offered 1 John 4: “‘Love comes from God and everyone who loves has
been born of God and knows God, because God is love. There is no fear
in love. For perfect love drives out fear, and those who love God love
all their brothers and sisters.’”
Rick
then spoke of his experiences on the Mexican border and the sanctity of
all life. “We become holy in community; we must study and do Torah, and
we build the Church by building community. God is within everyone, and
the direct experience of working with, for, and among the poor and
oppressed is the quickest way one can experience the presence of God.”
After
a few more speakers, Jack was overfilled and restless to move about. He
wandered the campus while listening to a CD by Dave Rovics, one of the
musicians at the conference. For the rest of the day, Jack couldn’t get
“They’re Building a Wall” out of his head:
They’re
building a wall, A wall between friends, A wall that justifies any
means to their ends. Many feet thick and twenty feet high. They’re
building the wall between water and land, So we can eat fruit and they
can eat sand. A wall to keep quiet that which you fear most. They’re
building the wall to remove reality from your facts on the ground, A
wall to keep distant the terrible sound of the houses that crumble and
the children that die, A wall to keep separate the truth from the lie.
A wall made of brick but bricks can be broken When the people of Zion
have finally awoken And said no more walls, no more refugees, No more
keeping people upon their knees. And before apartheid was ended they
were building a wall.
That
evening, Bishop John Shelby Spong began by asking, “What has happened
to Christianity? I have been a student of the Bible my entire life. I
am a committed Christian and open to anyone’s opinion, but not to their
own facts. The Bible has been used to justify slavery, segregation, to
deny woman equality, and to promote war. A lot of evil happens when the
Bible is misunderstood and misused. In the name of God, men have become
murderers. We live in a world where people in power get to define those
without power. The prophets spoke the word of God in concrete
circumstances and throughout history. Hosea spoke of God as love. Amos
understood that worship and justice go together. Micah confronted
Israel with their behavior, and God again told the people what is
required: ‘Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your Lord.’”
On Friday morning, in Newman Hall, in the sanctuary known as Holy Spirit Catholic Church, Betsy Rose led the crowd in singing:
There’s a new world coming, There’s a new world coming, There’s a new world coming, I can hear her breathing.
Jack
marveled at all the smiling faces around him and about the fact that he
had not been in a Catholic church since his youngest sister was wed
twenty-four years ago by their brother, Father Mike.
Rev.
Dr. Welton Gaddy, leader of the Interfaith Alliance Foundation and
pastor at Northminster Baptist Church in L.A, brought the crowd to
their feet from the start. “We are people hungry to get on with the
business we are about. American politics have already been transformed
by religion and spirit, just not the one we believe and desire. We are
a deeply divided nation, and the substance of what passes for religion
looks like the stuff of politics. There is no such thing as the
American religion, for we are a country of over seventy-five faith
traditions. The proper role of religion is to link core values, to
cooperate, to respect all people, to promote peace, justice, and
compassion, and to protect the weak, poor, and the environment. Today,
politics have become a form of religion. We need freedom for and from
that kind of religion. Religion should command, inspire hope, and build
bridges between other faiths and to those with no faith at all. We will
be restless until we speak the truth to power. We will be restless
until we comfort the afflicted and disturb the comfortable. We will be
restless until we become a nation that cares for its entire people and
lives with respect towards all others in the global village. May we all
be restless, and then speak and act in peace and goodwill, in the
spirit of cooperation.”
Jack’s
mind wandered back to what he had read in Subversive Orthodoxy:
Outlaws, Revolutionaries, and Other Christians in Disguise, as soon as
he noted the author Robert Inchausti was on the morning’s program.
Inchausti had written, “To change the world we must become receptacles
of God’s love, understanding and goodwill. We must have faith, not
merely of the mind, but of the heart that surrenders the whole man to
the divine inflow; moral action links personal salvation directly to
social responsibility. Victory is not the goal, doing God’s will is.”
Jack
reflected everyday on what God wanted from him, and spent most of the
time in the dark. He left his ruminating behind when Robert Inchausti
stood at the podium and proclaimed, “This country was built by
spiritual progressives. Spiritual progressives are the center and we
are not a mushy middle. The new bottom line is not new at all; it was
already articulated by the Puritans. The Puritans were about charity,
not power, and that is the true American tradition. We radical
spiritual activists are the heart of the American tradition. Of course
we know there will always be the poor among us, but our call always has
been to respond.”
At
the break, Jack was the first one out of Newman Hall, and he strode
directly to UC Botanical Garden to be with over three thousand
California-native plants and sublime silence. On his way back for the
afternoon session, he met a rabbi from Australia and a pastor from
England, who had traveled to America specifically to attend the
conference. Jack marveled at the possibilities of what might happen on
the other side of the world when these men shared what they had
experienced.
Jack
parted ways with them and headed back to Newman Hall to hear Father Fox
speak about the New Reformation. And Jack thought, Everyday, I am
crossing paths with so many incredible people. Last month I sat in
Reverend Ateek’s Sabeel office in Jerusalem, and the other night I sat
next to Abla, his sister-in-law, at a meeting of MEPAC. There, I met a
community of tireless workers in the political realm keeping the issue
of peace and justice in Israel and Palestine on the front burner. The
next day, I was in the office of this riot of a woman who founded
MECA--funny, crusty, and salty, with a most compassionate heart. For
seventeen years, MECA has been bearing witness to the West Bank and
Gaza. Then there’s Doug, the guy from that last work group; I have
never known anyone like him. Talk about connecting with one’s feminine
side! It has got to be holy wisdom, the feminine divinity that led him
to photograph the neighborhood gardens in his town and display them on
Main Street, to bring the folks around and build community. Then he
takes up dancing and singing--his wife must be wondering who she is now
sleeping with.
It
was apparent to Jack when he returned to Newman Hall that the fire
department’s maximum allowed crowd size was being ignored. In the
center of the sanctuary of Holy Spirit Catholic Church, Father Fox
proclaimed,
“Forget original sin; remember original blessing. There are
two Christianities in our midst. One worships a punitive father and
seeks obedience at all costs. It is patriarchal, demonizes woman, the
earth, science, gays, lesbians, and deep thought. It builds on fear and
it supports empire-builders. Its theology includes a punitive father in
the sky and teaches original sin.
“The
other Christianity recognizes the original blessing that all beings
derive from. We recognize awe, not sin, not guilt, as the starting
point of true religion. We recognize a divinity who is source of all
things and is as much mother as father, as much female as male. We
honor creation and diversity. When God created everything, He
pronounced it all good. We are here to make love to life. Yes, we are
here to make love to life.
“Delight
in creation and take your dreams into our politics and institutions. We
live in the midst of a suicidal economy, motivated by love of money. We
have reached a dead end. What we need to turn it around are hearts in
love with life. How do we do it?
“We
first must move from domination to partnership, and we begin by
educating our young in awe and wonder, not how to take tests. Awe leads
to reverence, which leads to gratitude, which will reinvent our
species. This is the task of our generation: to regain awe. The three
R’s need to be balanced by the ten C’s: contemplation, creativity,
chaos, compassion, courage, critical consciousness, community,
celebration, ceremony, and character.
“In
community, people remain united, despite everything that divides them.
In capitalist society, people are isolated, separated, despite
everything that should hold them together. We are in the midst of an
epic struggle between community and capitalistic society. We need a new
narrative. It is the economy of materialism; it is the virus of
affluenza that has weakened family life.”
SOME Unanswered Questions:
1. Why were standard operating procedures for dealing with hijacked airliners not followed that day?
2. Why were the extensive missile batteries and air defenses reportedly
deployed around the Pentagon not activated during the attack? 3.
Why did the Secret Service allow Bush to complete his elementary school
visit, apparently unconcerned about his safety or that of the
schoolchildren? 4. Why hasn't a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day?
5. Why haven't authorities in the U.S. and abroad published the results
of multiple investigations into trading that strongly suggested
foreknowledge of specific details of the 9/11 attacks, resulting in
tens of millions of dollars of traceable gains? 6. Why has Sibel
Edmonds, a former FBI translator who claims to have knowledge of
advance warnings, been publicly silenced with a gag order requested by
Attorney General Ashcroft and granted by a Bush-appointed judge?
7. How could Flight 77, which reportedly hit the Pentagon, have flown
back towards Washington D.C. for 40 minutes without being detected by
the FAA's radar or the even superior radar possessed by the US military?
8. How were the FBI and CIA able to release the names and photos of the
alleged hijackers within hours, as well as to visit houses,
restaurants, and flight schools they were known to frequent? 9.
What happened to the over 20 documented warnings given our government
by 14 foreign intelligence agencies or heads of state? 10. Why did
the Bush administration cover up the fact that the head of the
Pakistani intelligence agency was in Washington the week of 9/11 and
reportedly had $100,000 wired to Mohamed Atta, considered the
ringleader of the hijackers? 11. Why did the 911 Commission fail
to address most of the questions posed by the families of the victims,
in addition to almost all of the questions posed here? 12. Why was
Philip Zelikow chosen to be the Executive Director of the ostensibly
independent 911 Commission although he had co-authored a book with
Condoleezza Rice?
The following is from http://www.juancole.com/ Monday, September 14, 2009 Bin Laden Message - US Gov. translation
The USG Open Source Center translates the recently released audio address attributed to Usamah Bin Ladin
Bin Ladin Says US Should Stop Supporting Israel or Face 'War of Attrition' Jihadist Websites -- OSC Summary Monday, September 14, 2009 Document Type: OSC Summary
On
14 September, a forum participant posted to a jihadist website numerous
links to an 11-minute and 20-second audio statement by Al-Qa'ida leader
Usama Bin Ladin titled "Address to the American People." The audio
statement is produced by Al-Qa'ida's Al-Sahab Media and distributed
through Al-Fajr Media Center. The statement is dated Ramadan 1430,
corresponding to September 2009.
A translation of the statement follows:
"Praise
be to God, Who created people to worship Him, ordered them to be just,
and permitted the wronged to mete out fair punishment to the wrongdoer.
"American
people: This address to you is a reminder of the causes of 11
(September) and the wars and consequences that followed and the way to
settle it once and for all. I mention in particular the families of
those who were hurt in these events and who have recently called for
opening an investigation to know its causes. This is a first and
important step in the right direction among many other steps that have
deliberately gone in the wrong direction over eight barren years that
you have experienced.
"The entire American people should follow
suit, as the delay in knowing those reasons has cost you a lot without
any noteworthy benefit.
"If the White House administration,
which is one of the two parties to the dispute, has made it clear to
you in the past years that war was necessary to maintain your security,
then wise persons should be eager to listen to the two parties to the
dispute to know the truth, so listen to what I am going to say.
"At
the beginning, I say that we have made it clear and stated so many
times for over two decades that the cause of the quarrel with you is
your support for your Israeli allies, who have occupied our land,
Palestine. This position of yours, along with some other grievances, is
what prompted us to carry out the 11 September events. Had you known
the magnitude of our suffering as a result of the injustice of the Jews
against us, with the support of your administrations for them, you
would have known that both our nations are victims of the policies of
the White House, which is in fact a hostage in the hands of pressure
groups, especially major corporations and the Israeli lobby.
"One
of the best persons to explain to you the causes of the events of the
11th is one of your citizens, a former veteran CIA agent, whose
conscience awoke in his eighth decade and decided to tell the truth
despite the threats, and to explain to you the message of the 11th. So
he carried out some activities for this purpose in particular,
including his book "Apology of a Hired Assassin."
"As for
explaining the suffering of our people in Palestine, Obama has recently
acknowledged in his speech from Cairo the suffering of our kinfolk
there, who are living under occupation and siege. Things will become
clearer if you read what your former president, Carter, wrote about the
racism of the Israelis against our kinfolk in Palestine, and also if
you listened to his statement weeks ago during his visit to the
destroyed and besieged Gaza Strip. He said in that statement that the
people of Gaza are treated more as animals than human beings. For us
God suffices, and He is the best disposer of affairs.
"We should
have a lengthy pause at this point. Any person with an iota of mercy in
his heart cannot but sympathize with those oppressed elderly, women,
and children living under the deadly siege. Above that, the Zionists
pound them with US-made incendiary phosphorous bombs. Life there is
tragic beyond limits, to the point that children die b etween the arms
of their parents and doctors due to the lack of food and medicine and
the power outages. It is indeed a disgrace for world politicians who
are content with that, and their loyalists, who are behaving as such
with prior knowledge and premeditation, and under the influence of the
Israeli lobby in America. The details of that are explained by two of
your fellow citizens. They are John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in
their book "The Israel Lobby" in the United States.
"After
reading the suggested books, you will know the truth and you will be
severely shocked at the magnitude of deception that has been practiced
against you. You will also know that those who make statements from
inside the White House today and claim that your wars against us are
necessary for your security are in fact working along the same line of
Cheney and Bush, and propagating the former policies of intimidation to
market the interests of the relevant major corporations, at the expense
of your blood and economy. Those in fact are the ones who are imposing
wars on you, not the mujahidin. We are just defending our right to
liberate our land.
"If you thoroughly consider your situation,
you will know that the White House is occupied by pressure groups. You
should have made efforts to liberate it rather than fight to liberate
Iraq, as Bush claimed. The White House leader, under such
circumstances, and regardless of who he is, is like a train driver who
cannot but travel on the railways designed by these pressure groups.
Otherwise, his way would be blocked and he would fear that his destiny
would be like that of former President Kennedy and his brother.
"In
a nutshell, it is time to free yourselves from fear and intellectual
terrorism being practiced against you by the neoconservatives and the
Israeli lobby. You should put the file of your alliance with the
Israelis on the table of discussion. You should ask yourselves the
following question so that you can determine your position: Do you like
the Israelis' security, sons, and economy more than your security,
blood, sons, money, jobs, houses, economy, and reputation? If you
choose your security and stopping the wars -- and this has been shown
by opinion polls -- then this requires that you act to stop those who
are tampering with our security on your end. We are prepared to respond
to this option on sound and fair foundations that have been mentioned
before.
"Here is an important point that we should pay attention
to with regard to war and stopping it. When Bush assumed power and
appointed a defense secretary who had made the biggest contribution to
killing more than two million persecuted villagers in Vietnam, sane
people predicted that Bush was preparing for new massacres in his era.
This was what took place in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Obama assumed
power and kept the men of Cheney and Bush -- namely, the senior
officials in the Defense Department, like Gates, Mullen, and Petraeus
-- sane people knew that Obama is a weak person who will not be able to
stop the war as he had promised and that he would procrastinate as much
as possible. If he were to decide, then he would hand over command to
the generals who oppose this aimless war, like the former commander of
troops in Iraq, General Sanchez, and the commander of the Central
Command who was forced by Bush to resign shortly before leaving the
White House due to his opposition to the war. He appointed instead of
him a person who would escalate the war. Under the cover of his
readiness to cooperate with the Republicans, Obama made the biggest
trick as he kept the most important and most dangerous secretary from
Cheney's men to continue the war. The days will show you that you have
changed only faces in the White House. The bitter truth is that the
neoconservatives are still a heavy burden on you.
"Once again,
if you stop the war, then that is fine. If you choose not to stop the
war, then we have no other option but to continue the war of attrition
against you on all possible axes, just as we did with the Soviet Union
for 10 years until it disintegrated, with the grace of God. Continue
the war for as long as you wish. You are fighting a desperate, losing
war that is in favor of others. There seems to be no end in sight for
this war.
"Russian generals, who learned lessons from the
battles in Afghanistan, had anticipated the result of the war before
its start, but you do not like those who give you advice. This is a
losing war, God willing, as it is funded by money that is borrowed
based on exorbitant usury and is fought by soldiers whose morale is
down and who commit suicide on a daily basis to escape from this war.
"This
war was prescribed to you by two doctors, Cheney and Bush, as a cure
for the 11 September events. However, the bitterness and losses caused
by this war are worse than the bitterness of the events themselves. The
accumulated debts incurred as a result of this war have almost done
away with the US economy as a whole. It has been said that disease
could be less evil than some medicines.
"Praise be to God, we
are carrying our weapon on our shoulders and have been fighting the two
poles of evil in the East and the West for 30 years. Throughout this
period, we have not seen any cases of suicide among us despite the
international pursuit against us. We praise God for this. This proves
the soundness of our belief and the justice of our cause. God willing,
we will continue our way to liberate our land. Our weapon is patience.
We seek victory from God. We will not give up the Al-Aqsa Mosque. We
hold on to Palestine more than we hold on to our souls. Continue the
war as long as you wish, we will never bargain over it (Palestine).
"Endless war will not tire me "For I am now fully grown and strong "For this, my mother begot me (lines of poetry) "Peace be upon those who follow guidance." |
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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 |
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 |
“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 |
"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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