CAFI Newsletter #63
cafi-list@christianactionforisrael.org
cafi-list@christianactionforisrael.org
Fri, 28 Dec 2001 16:20:39 -0500
*******************************************************************
* CHRISTIAN ACTION FOR ISRAEL NEWSLETTER #63 *
*******************************************************************
"On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen"
Isaiah 62:6
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
OUR NEW DOMAIN: http://christianactionforisrael.org
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WE WISH EVERYONE A SAFE AND HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
PLEASE HELP US WITH YOUR SUPPORT
http://christianactionforisrael.org/repform.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Friday, December 28, 2001
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL
2. SHARON'S CHRISTMAS GIFT
3. SHARON, THE PARTY POOPER
4. BRITISH POLITE SOCIETY HAS FOUND A NOT-SO-NEW TARGET
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1. O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL
by Michelle Malkin - December 26, 2001
Every December, people get religion about
religion -- and for a fleeting moment, government
secularists lose their invincibility cloaks. Example:
Ron Sims, the county executive of my old
stomping grounds in Seattle, got rightly roasted
nationwide after issuing a memo urging public employees
to avoid using the phrase "Merry Christmas" (or any other
faith-specific greeting). Internet discussion boards buzzed
with derision. Newspaper editorialists took off their Grinch
costumes and denounced such godless bureaucratic
humbug. And angry citizens across the country deluged
Sims' office with so many e-mails and phone calls that he
was forced to abandon his party-pooping policy.
But what happens when the spiritual holidays are over?
Once the New Year begins, too many of us pack up
their Menorahs, throw away their Christmas trees, and
allow politicians and liberal extremists to continue their
relentless crusade to banish God from the public square.
Those who are truly outraged by such religion-bashing
antics can put their money where their faith is by
supporting individuals and organizations that combat
rampant secularism 365 days a year.
Jewish World Review (www.jewishworldreview.com) is a
webzine of political and social commentary edited and
published by New York journalist Binyamin Jolkovsky. The
daily online publication, which celebrated its fourth
anniversary this month, was founded to communicate
traditional values and morality from a Jewish perspective
-- and to counter growing indifference among young Jews
to their religious heritage. Among JWR's prominent
Jewish contributors: terrorism scholar Daniel Pipes,
Jerusalem Post columnist Jonathan Rosenblum, and
journalists Nat Hentoff, Bob Greene and Paul Greenberg.
The 33-year-old Jolkovsky, who operates JWR on a
shoestring budget in Brooklyn, has used his sharp pen to
criticize hypocritical Jews on the left and defend
conservative Christians on the right.
When Connecticut Senator and former Democratic
vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman
mischaracterized orthodox Jewish doctrine on the Don
Imus show and later courted anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan,
Jolkovsky bluntly exposed Lieberman's sellout of his core
religious beliefs in pursuit of higher public office.
When feminists, ethnic groups and the media painted
Attorney General John Ashcroft as a bigot during his
nomination hearings, JWR reported on the strong
support Ashcroft received from Orthodox Jews in Missouri.
And when Johnny Hart's popular cartoon strip, "B.C.,"
was attacked earlier this spring by liberal Jews upset
with its overtly Christian message, Jolkovsky bravely
stepped into the fray. "As a Sabbath-observant Jew,
rabbinical school alumnus and publisher of the
most-accessed Jewish website, I see absolutely nothing
wrong with Hart's message ... The majority religion in
this country is still Christianity and those who feel
queasy about encountering public displays of it
should grow some thicker skin."
Forming coalitions across denominational lines is
important, Jolkovsky says, "in order to give greater
voice to those who hold religious values dear." So JWR's
stable of regulars also includes many non-Jewish writers
(including Tony Snow, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams and
yours truly). In fact, Jolkovsky refers to his site as the
"Jewish e-dress for all peoples of all faiths. There is
far more that unites us than divides us."
Another of JWR's contributors, Kevin Hasson, heads The
Becket Fund for Religious Liberty -- a bipartisan and
ecumenical, public-interest law firm based in Washington,
D.C., which protects the free expression of all religious
traditions. Among The Becket Fund's most famous ongoing
pro bono cases is its defense of Zachary Hood, a Christian
first-grader from New Jersey whose public school teacher
forbade him from reading his favorite story about Jacob
and Esau aloud to his classmates. The group also
represents several houses of worship -- including a
Baptist church in Texas, a Jewish congregation in
Pennsylvania, and Catholic churches in King County,
Wash. -- which are all under attack by overzealous
zoning regulators.
Long after the December media buzz about government
Grinches dies down, committed champions of religious
liberty and expression continue to fight the extremes
of liberal secularism. For JewishWorldReview.com,
The Becket Fund, and many other unsung warriors, the
campaign against the Ron Simses of the world is more
than a passing holiday fancy.
It's a lifelong labor of love and faith.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2. SHARON'S CHRISTMAS GIFT
Jerusalem Post
(December 25) - When Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon was overwhelmingly elected in February,
both opponents and supporters expected him to
remain true to his reputation as one of the
country's most hawkish generals and a believer in
the primacy of military force. It was therefore a
surprise to many when Sharon showed early on an
appreciation for the need to maintain Israel's
diplomatic standing in the world, even if this meant
exercising military restraint.
Almost no one expected that Sharon would coin
the phrase "restraint is an element of power" to
explain his policies.
Sometimes, such as when he helped push through
a cabinet decision declaring Yasser Arafat
"irrelevant," he has shown a willingness to bear
international criticism to make a necessary point.
But in two recent decisions, the government
seems to have miscalculated in its cost-benefit
analysis, while ignoring more serious and
immediate problems.
Last week, Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau
ordered that the Palestinian Authority's Jerusalem
point man, Sari Nusseibeh, be detained for
questioning for holding a PLO-sponsored
reception for foreign diplomats based in
Jerusalem. Technically, the government was
correct that this reception was a violation of the
Oslo Accords, which gives the PA no jurisdiction
in Jerusalem. According to the agreement, the PA
may only have an official presence in areas that at
least partially come under its control (Areas A and
B), not in Area C, and certainly not in Jerusalem.
In practice, however, there is a question to what
length it is worthwhile to play cat and mouse with
the PA on this. Under the Netanyahu government,
for example, a modus vivendi evolved under which
diplomats below the level of deputy minister, but
not above, were allowed to meet with the PA in
Jerusalem.
The Sharon government has shut down Orient
House, an act that did mark a serious reassertion
of Israeli sovereignty in the city. But the futility of
busting up receptions at hotels was shown by the
fact that Nusseibah held the same gathering a few
days later, with the slight change that the
invitations did not bear the PA or PLO insignia. In
the meantime, the publicity was a godsend for the
PA, since Israel could be portrayed as cracking
down on the most moderate official spokesman
the Palestinians have, in the presence of most of
the foreign diplomatic corps.
Next the government decided, by a narrow 7-6
vote, to prohibit Arafat from attending tonight's
Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem. Here too,
the government has ample reason to keep up the
pressure on Arafat, including not allowing him to
flit about the capitals of Europe instead of
cracking down on terrorism. But the move actually
decreased the pressure on Arafat by making
Israel look like it was in some way restricting a
religious celebration.
Arafat's attempt to portray himself as a champion
of Christianity is, of course, preposterous. If
anything, he has used Christians as human
shields in Beit Jala, where terrorists he controlled
fired freely into the Jerusalem neighborhood of
Gilo. Most Christians do not know that proportion
of Christians of Bethlehem has dropped from
about 90 percent 50 years ago to 35 percent
today, and that Christian Palestinians have been
fleeing the PA at four times the rate of Muslims.
Israel rightly prides itself on upholding religious
freedom, even under difficult security
circumstances, such as when tens of thousands of
Muslim faithful attend Ramadan services on the
Temple Mount. Even though Arafat is a Muslim,
allowing his visit to Bethlehem would have been
an opportunity to show how seriously Israel takes
religious freedom, while the Palestinians have
ransacked ancient synagogues and other Jewish
sites and continue to deny the Jewish connection
to the Temple Mount.
Not only do Palestinians, including Arafat himself
before an astonished Bill Clinton at Camp David
last year, deny any Jewish connection to the site
that is holiest to the Jewish people, but the
PA-controlled Wakf is destroying archeological
evidence with Taliban-like determination.
According to a letter just sent to Sharon by a string
of public figures and archeologists including
Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, Meir Shamgar, and
Gabi Barkai, the Wakf is systematically
"transforming the Temple Mount compound into
one enormous mosque, while erasing and
destroying archeological evidence of all kinds,
including any evidence of a Jewish connection to
the area." Since Sharon's visit in September
2000, there has been no archeological
supervision of (or press access to) Wakf activities
on the Temple Mount.
The government did finally limit the access of
heavy equipment to the area, but at this moment
the Wakf is busy "cleaning" 37 ancient cisterns
archeologists should be going through with a
fine-toothed comb.
If Sharon cares about asserting sovereignty in
Jerusalem, he should begin by ending the on
going archeological crimes taking place on the
Temple Mount. Israel should be as zealous about
protecting what archeologist Barkai calls
"Jerusalem's acropolis" as it is about ensuring the
security of worshippers at the Western Wall.
Receptions and Christmas celebrations come
and go, but the damage from the Wakf's romp
through one of world's holiest and most sensitive
archeological sites is irreversible, and Sharon's
indifference is inexcusable.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3. SHARON, THE PARTY POOPER
Mark A. Heller - Jerusalem Post
(December 28) - For more than 150 years, ever
since Charles Dickens wrote that smarmy little
book, A Christmas Carol, the holiday season has
been a hard time for hard-headed realists. Just
say or do anything that goes even slightly against
the grain of saccharine sweetness, and the
bleeding-heart liberals will be down on you in a
flash, calling you "Scrooge" and turning you into
an incorrigible misanthrope.
You might have thought that there was a chance to
avoid this epidemic of critical niceness in Israel.
After all, the only Jewish holiday in December is
Hannuka, which is meant to commemorate a
successful war against the Greeks (though there
is a pathetic attempt to obscure this fact with
syrupy practices such as candle-lighting, eating
greasy food and giving presents to kids). But you
can't get away from it, because there are too
many other holidays available as an excuse for a
party. So anything that looks or sounds remotely
like "Bah, Humbug," whatever the justification, is
going to get you into serious trouble.
If you don't believe it, look at the sad case of
Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau. Landau
instinctively grasped that a party with foreign
consuls called by Sari Nusseibeh to mark Eid
al-Fitr (the end of the Ramadan fast) was an
intolerable challenge to Israel's otherwise
uncontested control of united Jerusalem, at a
particularly sensitive moment in the peace
process. How else can one explain the fact that
Muslims, who celebrate the Eid at a different time
every year, perversely decided to hold it this year
in December, just when the Jerusalem question
was about to disappear forever from the
international agenda.
Landau also knew that suicide bombers are
merely an epiphenomenon and that juice and
cookies are the real foundation on which terrorism
is built. So he took the only logical and reasonable
course of action: he sent the cops to break up the
party. And what was his reward for standing fast in
the face of these threats to internal security? An
unrelenting barrage of criticism from the extreme
Left.
And then there's the even sadder case of Ariel
Sharon. The prime minister understood the truth
that eluded so many other allegedly intelligent
people: that allowing Yasser Arafat to attend
Midnight Mass in Bethlehem would restore
Arafat's international stature, just after an Israeli
cabinet declaration had made him irrelevant. Far
better to keep him cooped up in Ramallah so that
CNN and the BBC could ignore him and he could,
in gratitude for being spared the onerous journey,
focus with renewed dedication on the war against
terrorism. But all Sharon gained in return for his
difficult and courageous decision was a chorus of
accusations that he is a party pooper.
It's hard to see what the fuss is all about. Both
Landau and Sharon set out to show the
Palestinians and the rest of the world who is boss
around here, and there was absolutely no reason
to let the accidents of Muslim and Christian
calendars interfere with that objective.
And their actions are clearly vindicated by the
results. Everyone now accepts that Israel is
sensitive to the religious needs of others and
guarantees free access to holy places. As a
result, Israel's political position on Jerusalem is
unassailable, Arafat remains alone in the dock of
world public opinion, and the Palestinians are so
intimidated that the problem of terrorism has
almost certainly been solved.
In fact, the Landau/Sharon approach is so sound
that they should just persist and ignore whatever
Dickensian nit-picking might follow.
The next excuse for trouble-making in the holiday
season is New Year's Eve. There's not the
slightest doubt that all kinds of malevolent
characters are making plans to exploit this for
nefarious purposes. That threat should be nipped
in the bud right now, if necessary, by a cabinet
decision declaring New Year's Eve irrelevant. That
way, all those who are thinking of pretending to
hold a party - even if it's just wine and cheese in
Ra'anana - in order to cover up their real
objectives, will be deprived of the pretext and
forced to behave just as Landau and Sharon want
them to. The only one who won't be affected is
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. He doesn't have a party to
go to.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4. BRITISH POLITE SOCIETY HAS FOUND A NOT-SO-NEW TARGET
By Melanie Phillips, a columnist with the Daily Mail
in London.
Since the war against terror started, polite British
society has found an enemy to target. It's neither the
Taliban nor al Qaeda, however -- it's the state of
Israel and Jews in general.
That's because a common belief has suddenly emerged in
Britain that the Middle East is the cause of world
terror and that Israel is to blame for the impasse
there. This leads to anti-Zionism, which is
consequently used as a thin disguise for
anti-Semitism. People now make remarks that would have
been inconceivable just a few months previously.
In an article in the Spectator magazine, the writer
Petronella Wyatt recounted that she had been asked
recently whether she thought there was an
international Jewish conspiracy. She also reported on
a member of the House of Lords of impeccable liberal
credentials saying, "Well, the Jews have been asking
for it and now, thank God, we can say what we think at
last."
These are not isolated incidents. I came up against
the phenomenon when I was a panel member on the BBC's
flagship current affairs program Question Time. On the
panel with me was the writer Will Self, the Labour
backbencher Diane Abbott, the Tory politician Ken
Clarke and the Liberal Democrat MP Ed Davey.
'Terrorism on Both Sides'
An Israeli member of the audience asked why the
Americans could go halfway round the world to root out
terror when the Israelis were condemned for doing the
same in their own back yard. The other panel members
seemed to subscribe to precisely that double standard.
Mr. Davey said Yasser Arafat couldn't be expected to
deal with the terrorists in his midst. Ms. Abbott
implied that Israel was inflicting emotionally
incontinent brutality and vengeance on the
Palestinians. And Ken Clarke deplored the "terrorism
on both sides" (he later remembered that there was a
distinction between terrorism and the reaction to it).
The audience was clearly hostile to Israel and
America. One man said the Palestinians were the
victims of Israeli injustice. Another said Mr. Sharon
was a war criminal. A woman said that if terrorism was
the indiscriminate bombing of innocent people, we need
look no further than what George W. Bush was doing in
Afghanistan, to great applause.
I took a very different line. Yes, I said, there
definitely was a double standard; I wondered why
people were sympathetic when Israelis died but not
sympathetic when they tried to prevent themselves from
dying. I added that the Palestinian Authority was a
sponsor of terror and incited violence daily against
Israelis and Jews across the world.
As I spoke, I was aware of a low hissing from the
audience. I looked at their faces and saw disbelief
and hostility. I glanced at the woman who had made the
George Bush point; her face was contorted with what
can only be described as hatred.
Then Will Self asked the question that had clearly
formed in his mind after he read through a selection
of my articles on the train from London to Bristol,
where the show was being taped, as he told me later he
had. Where, he demanded, did my own loyalties lie? If
Britain declared war on Israel, whose side would I be
on?
I could scarcely believe what I had heard. Will Self
(who claimed to be Jewish himself) was seeking to make
the wider world aware of two things: first, that I was
a Jew, and second, that therefore my views on Israel
could be disregarded since Jews had double loyalties.
I replied that British Jews were immensely patriotic.
It was also inconceivable that Britain should attack
Israel since Israel was a salient of democracy in the
Middle East. But if the inconceivable were ever to
happen, this would represent such a turning against
Jews that some of us British Jews might feel we had no
alternative but to live in Israel. That of course was
entirely different from being a traitor to one's own
country.
When I said, however, that Israel was a democracy,
there was an astonishing reaction from the audience.
They laughed. That incredulous laugh was more shocking
even than Will Self's attack. It revealed that however
many Israeli teenagers are blown to smithereens by
suicide bombers, the British have seen the pictures of
Israel's tanks demolishing Palestinian houses and
above all seen the pictures of those Palestinian
children being killed by Israeli soldiers, and they
have formed the view that Israel is a tyranny and the
Jews are the real terrorists.
The program discussion lurched from bad to worse. From
the audience came the considered view that Israel was
the source of terror in the Middle East, that what it
was doing was as bad as what was done to it, and that
it was responsible for ethnic cleansing.
Just a show? I believe that the visceral hostility
towards Israel and Jews displayed by both the panel
and the audience are indicative now of much mainstream
British opinion. Indeed, the British government
appears to believe that if only the United States
would put pressure on Israel, there would be peace in
the Middle East.
Such opinions are marked by such blatant double
standards and an inverted sense of right and wrong
that one has to ask the reason for such perversity.
Why is Israel portrayed as murderous when it is
clearly attempting -- however misguidedly -- to defend
itself against terror? Why do these upstanding British
citizens omit to mention that the Palestinian
Authority daily pumps out through its mass media
Nazi-style anti-Jewish libels and incitements to
murder and martyrdom?
There are several likely explanations. The British
instinctively side with the underdog. At home, they
resent the fact that the Jews punch well above their
numerical weight by being overrepresented in the
professions. In Israel, they see the Jews, with the
might of America behind them, pulverizing Palestinians
armed only with stones.
Self-Loathing
Then there is the fact that the establishment, that
is, Labour MPs, the liberal broadsheet newspapers and
in particular the BBC -- are also dominated by the
thinking of the New Left, the Marxist revisionism that
that replaced the class struggle by the culture war.
The New Left is characterized by an abiding hatred of
Israel, America and a self-loathing about Western
values. The result is that the British intellectual
classes are an all-too willing conduit for anti-Jewish
and anti-Israel poison and propaganda. In the face of
all this, British Jews are astonishingly silent,
probably because they are hardly less horrified by the
scenes of Palestinian misery that unfold daily across
their TV screens.
But one does not have to be a fan of Ariel Sharon to
see that criticisms of Israeli tactics are almost
beside the point. For Israel's very existence is
threatened. The Palestine Authority makes it
abundantly clear in all it says for internal
consumption that it regards the whole of "Palestine"
as occupied and will be satisfied with nothing less
than the destruction of the Jewish state.
Israel has never troubled to make its case effectively
to a world which it assumes will always be hostile or
indifferent. But it never foresaw that Palestinian
terror -- whose purpose was to provoke a
counter-reaction that would turn the world against
Israel and destroy the Jewish state's very soul --
would be financed by the Western world.
But this is what has happened. The West, especially in
Europe, has fallen for the propaganda of victim
culture. The EU, of which Britain is a member, is the
largest supplier of funds to the PA. The result is
that the British, far from making common cause against
global terror, have succumbed to the very prejudices
that lie behind it.
-- From The Wall Street Journal Europe
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
PLEASE FORWARD TO FRIENDS AND ENCOURAGE THEM TO SUBSCRIBE
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Become a WITNESS TO THE NATIONS and let them know what great things
our Lord is doing for Israel and what great things He will continue to
do for her, His firstborn. Please read the 'Witness to the Nations'
document and if you agree with what you have read, please place your
name on this most Holy List and stand with all those who hold firm to
the promises of God and the blessings of Abraham.
http://christianactionforisrael.org/witness/home1.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WE CAN NOW ACCEPT YOUR VISA DONATIONS USING A SECURE SERVER.
PLEASE HELP US WITH YOUR SUPPORT
http://christianactionforisrael.org/repform.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS NEWSLETTER.
Comments/Suggestions newsletter@christianactionforisrael.org
SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE INFO BELOW.
* * *
*
* * *
. . * .xx. * . . *
.sss ***.XXXX.*** sss.
* .sss.****.XXXXXX.****.sss. *
.sss.****.XXXXXXXX.****.sss.
.sss.****.XX X.****.sss. *
.sss.****.XXX HAPPY XX.****.sss. *
.sss.***.XXXX XXX.***.sss.
.ss.***.XXXXX NEW XXXX.***.ss.
* .ss.***.XXXXX XXXX.***.ss. *
.s.***.XXXXXX YEAR XXXXX.***.s.
.s.***.XXXXX XXXX.***.s.
.s.***.XXXXXXXXXXXXXX.***.s. * *
* .s.***.XXXXXXXXXXX.***.s.
* .s.**.XXXXXXXXX.**.s. *
.**.XXXXXXX.**.
\ \ / / *
======= *
|@@=@@|
* |*@=@*|
=======