Turning the Tide
Monday, January 14, 2008
I read posts like this one over at Israpundit that make pretty clear points about the way the world really works and I wonder how long it will be until this tick pops and the entire population is forced to face reality.
In the above-linked post, Ted Belman points out, "For that matter, one wonders why US is the chief sponsor of Fatah? Oh, we know that they also have Nazis roots. For that matter so does the CIA." Belman's far from the first to draw attention to the sad, but true fact that the United States government hasn't always fought on the side of truth and righteousness. Political conservatives, Christians (especially the Evangelical ones), members of the Greatest Generation, and even older Jewish Americans have a tendency to view America through rose-coloured glasses.
A few years ago, I attended a Pesach seder that was punctuated not with the classic "L'Shanah Haba B'Yerushalayim" toast, but with a chorus of "G-d Bless America" instigated by one elderly lady who said, "Jerusalem is lovely, but America is our home." I attended the seder with a few fellow Hillel members. At the time, we were establishing a watchdog group to monitor increasing levels of Muslim anti-Jewish and anti-Israelness on campus. The group was renegade at best, unable to even count on Jewish support after an explosive Parents' Weekend Hillel meeting at which more than one 50-something professional Jewish American declared, "I don't want my child involved in anything controversial on campus! They should just keep their mouths shut!" We kept our mouths shut, alright: we could conquer the hatred espoused by Muslim exchange students at on-campus events, but how could we respond to the American patriotism expressed by our Jewish elders?
Liking America isn't a bad thing. Using your appreciation of the nation as a whitewash to cover over the many faults and poor choices of American political officials can, however, be quite a dangerous thing. Especially when you're Jewish. How do you reckon your love for America with the actions taken by the American government (actions dating back to 1947 and before-- to FDR's Administration and their response to the Holocaust) to purposefully ensure the destruction of the people and the State of Israel?
The other night I was flipping the channels and came across a rebroadcast of The 700 Club. Pat Robertson's son, who apparently now hosts the show, was remarking on Bush's visit to Israel and his statements about "ending the occupation that began in 1967" by saying that he wasn't sure why the President was doing what he was doing, and saying what he was saying, but he hoped that Bush would rethink things, because his actions certainly didn't bode well for America, given the truth of the Biblical prophecies about Israel. His comments were benign, but they also carried with them a great deal of confusion. After all, how could the President of the Evangelicals go to the Holy Land and tell the Jewish people that they had to give up Jerusalem? It just doesn't make sense. And it certainly doesn't bode well for the pro-Israel Evangelicals, especially not the rapture-ready crowd.
What will be the event that tips the scales, that pops the tick, that forces people to wake up and face facts for what they truly are and not what they seem to be based on history, or politcal platforms, or sermons, or popular opinion? Or will it be like the days preceeding the last century's world wars, when current events forced chaos and panic to overrule logical thinking?
Labels: America, Bush, Evangelical Christians, Israel, Jewish, United States, Zionism
posted by Shoshana @ 7:15 PM
This Just In
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
In The Real World: More than 2,000 people lined the walls of Old Jerusalem this week. In honor of President Bush's first visit to Israel, the 2,000 demonstrators carried Israeli flags and signs reading: "BUSH READ YOUR BIBLE: ISRAEL BELONGS TO THE JEWS" and "JERUSALEM = JEWISH".
In the Messianic Times: A three-quarter page article on Chalutzim Academy childhood sweethearts who got married after college.
Commentary/Opinion: The level of self-inolvement exhibited by the Messianic community is dangerously pathetic.
This has been the latest edition of This Just In....Stay tuned for more breaking news as it cracks....
Labels: Bush, Israel, Jerusalem, Messianic Judaism, Messianic Times, Zionism
posted by Shoshana @ 8:50 PM
Big Brother is Full of It
Thursday, January 03, 2008
I love the way the American media (and international media, for that matter) create this world of thought that they expect the average public to just live within, without question or complaint.
For example, we all spent last Friday watching and listening to endless 24/7 coverage about Benazir Bhutto's asassination in Pakistan. What we didn't hear about was the murder of two off-duty IDF soldiers by a Palestian policeman and a Fatah terrorist. From Israel Matzav:
According to details of the murder of off-duty soldiers and nature enthusiasts David Rubin (21) and Ahikam Amihai (20), the gunmen, Ali Dandis, 24, and Amar Taha, 26, surrendered on the day of the attack to the Palestinian security forces in Hebron out of fear that they would be caught by the IDF. They also handed over the weapons they captured from the hikers.In the eyes of the American and international news mediums, these two innocent Israelis, murdered by muslim arab terrorists while they were taking a walk in the park, don't count. Not because they aren't members of the one sane, logical, functioning democracy in the Middle East, but because they don't wear headscarves, they didn't spend the last decade vacationing in the Arab world's version of Monte Carlo, and they weren't stupid enough to poke their unprotected heads through a sunroof to wave at a crowd of men raised to operate according to sharia law. They were just two young guys in the park. There's no news there-- after all, plenty of people get attacked in parks across the United States every day. Heck, I spent last week watching an entire day of news coverage about a kid who got mauled by a tiger in a park. Somehow, I bet he didn't get mauled because the tiger hated Jews and targeted them specifically because he believed Jews didn't deserve to live. Tell me, do they have anti-Israeli tigers? Have we explored this angle yet? Let's get Geraldo on it, right away.
Dandis worked as a clerk at the Sharia [Muslim religious. CiJ] courts in Hebron. Both are residents of the West Bank city, security officials said. They noted that Friday's attack was not the first time that Palestinian security officials or policemen were involved in terror attacks. Last month, Ido Zoldan was gunned down in the West Bank by Palestinian terrorists that turned out to be members of the PA security forces.
The PA did not report the surrendering of the terrorists, the Shin Bet said. After learning of their surrender, the security agency transferred a request to the PA asking that they transfer to Israel the murder weapons and the weapons of those who were murdered. In response to the demand, PA officials confirmed that the two had surrendered and were being interrogated. [In other words, had Israel not found out, the 'Palestinian Authority' would not have said anything. CiJ]
All of the weapons were transferred to Israel on Saturday.
Security officials said the attack was premeditated and its goal was to kill the hikers and steal their weapons. Security officials said that declarations in the media by Palestinian officials to the effect that the incident was of a criminal nature were in direct contradiction to the findings on the scene, as well as to the confessions of the terrorists themselves.
Today, Olmert confirmed to the Jerusalem Post that this is the year to divide Jerusalem. Happy 60th, Israel. The greatest birthday gift is knowing that your thousands of war heroes and victims of terror have died in vain. Mazel Tov:
Israel needs to internalize that even its supportive friends on the international stage conceive of the country's future on the basis of the 1967 borders and with Jerusalem divided, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has declared to The Jerusalem Post.Okay, yeah, enough of that.
...In an interview at the start of a year that he hopes will yield a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace accord...
In response to President Bush's remarks regarding Jewish settlement expansion: He told Reuters that during his visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories he would talk about Israeli settlement expansion, "about how that is, that can be, you know, an impediment to success.", Tzvi Fishman of Am K'Lavee has created posters that read: Bush, Read Your Bible: G-d Gave Israel to the Jews to be used to greet the President upon his arrival to Israel next week. I think American Zionists should download the image and click "print" and send it off to the White House, Attn: Condi Rice. Then again, maybe we should just fax it to Arafat's tomb. I hear it's a favorite vacation spot for diplomatic spiders.
How many Americans who care about Israel--Jewish Americans, Christians, righteous gentiles--know or understand the fact that our national media doesn't report about Israel because they don't want you to consider the Jewish nation a facet of your existence? These media agencies (and, namely, the corporations and money mongers behind them who call the shots) don't want you to think about Israel because they don't want Israel to matter to you, because if it did, then you might just take a moment to speak up about the radical injustices being done to the nation of G-d by our very own government, academic institutions, and media organizations. What better way to keep people quiet than to keep them totally uninformed? Ignorance is bliss, right? Well, for who? Apparently not David Rubin and Ahikam Amihai, nor Gilad Shalit, nor Ehud Goldwasser, nor Eldad Regev, if you even remember them-- if you even know who they are.
"To whom much has been given, much will be required," as the Biblical saying goes. We were given the Torah. We are expected to know better and act accordingly. Yet, the majority of us still wander around in the darkness of our own making, accepting the world as it is set before us by our media, our professors, our teachers, our Rabbis, our pastors, our priests, our officials. We sit there and we accept what we are told to do, to say, to think. In the meantime, the nation of Israel is dying a slow, painful death, and very few people from the grand sects that claim to care are bothering to do a thing about it. This tells me one thing: Israel-lovers need to start thinking outside their carefully constructed box.
And they'd better do it quick.
Labels: Ahikam Amihai, America, Bush, David Rubin, IDF, Israel, Judaism, news media, Olmert, Zionism
posted by Shoshana @ 9:05 PM
As if the event of today wasn't enough of a head's up...
Thursday, December 27, 2007
President Bush to be Protected by Palestinian Terrorists on Middle East trip [Israpundit]
President Bush is going to be protected by Fatah-PLO terrorists during his brief visit to Palestinian President Abbas in “the rump Duchy of Ramallah”. His trip to the embattled region starts on January 9th. According to this report from Aaron Klein of WorldNet Daily’s Jerusalem bureau , approximately 6,000 members of the Elite Force 17 and the infamous Al Aksa Brigade will provide security along the transit from Israeli to Palestinian territories.Of course, the most insightful commentary comes from an Israpundit reader:
...The irony is that a number of those Palestinian security forces to be deployed were former Israeli prisoners ,convicted of terrorist crimes. who were recently released by benighted PM Olmert in a gesture of good will. You may recall that in 2003, three American security contractors were killed on another US diplomatic mission in Gaza. The US has never disclosed whether the Palestinians apprehended the killers of that bombing attack. Here are the facts of that 'hit', lest you have forgotten:
October 17, 2003, Gaza Strip, Israel, Three Americans were killed and another wounded on October 15, 2003 when an explosion tore through a van that was part of a diplomatic convoy traveling through the Gaza Strip. The killed and injured Americans were part of a security force for the diplomatic officials. The State Department identified the slain Americans as John Branchizio (36) Mark T. Parson (31) and John Martin Linde Jr. (30) all employees of DynCorp, a Virginia-based security firm.
If anything happens to Bush, they’ll all blame Israel.What a nightmare. May HaShem have mercy on His people.
Labels: Bush, Israel, palestinians, Road Map
posted by Shoshana @ 8:46 PM
