CAFI Newsletter #80
cafi-list@christianactionforisrael.org
cafi-list@christianactionforisrael.org
Fri, 26 Apr 2002 19:45:47 -0400
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* CHRISTIAN ACTION FOR ISRAEL NEWSLETTER #80 *
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"ON YOUR WALLS, O JERUSALEM, I HAVE APPOINTED WATCHMEN"
Isaiah 62:6
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Is the ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT CONFUSING?
WHERE ARE THE TERRITORIES that everyone
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WHAT IS THE "WEST BANK"?
WHAT IS GOD'S POINT OF VIEW?
Nothing can stop God from performing what He has promised
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t is highly suitable for the beginning reader on Israel
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http://christianactionforisrael.org/mountains.html
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Friday, April 26, 2002
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. THE SECOND BATTLE OF JENIN
2. UNITED IN FREEDOM
3. INSTANTANEOUS KILLINGS OF "COLLABORATORS"!
4. USING THE SACRED AS A POLITICAL TOOL
5. QUOTES TO NOTE
6. HIGHLIGHT ARTICLES
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1. THE SECOND BATTLE OF JENIN
Editorial, The Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2002
The Middle East breeds myths faster than it can digest
them. The latest is Jenin, the Palestinian West Bank
refugee camp and the scene earlier this month of a bloody
battle. The Israeli military laid siege and overran the
camp after eight days of fighting.
But that was nothing compared with the propaganda
battle now going on to persuade the world that something
far worse really happened. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
yesterday accused the Israeli army of "despicable crimes"
in Jenin. Palestinian leaders speak of 500 civilian deaths,
Amnesty International talks about "possible war crimes,"
and the U.N.'s Mideast envoy calls the Israeli military
offensive
"totally unacceptable and horrific beyond belief."
Pardon us if we stick to the few facts anyone really
knows. Home to 14,000 Palestinians, Jenin was not
Mayberry RFD. It was a stronghold of Hamas and the
Islamic Jihad, where extremists trained and armed young
people to kill Israeli civilians. By the terrorists'
own admission, about 20 of the 50 suicide bombers
since September 2000 came from Jenin.
Scores of well-armed Palestinians were ready when
the Israelis moved in on the morning of April 3. They
had burrowed tunnels, booby-trapped doors and set up
snipers. Palestinian militants also placed the civilians
of the camp, including children and wives, directly and
deliberately in harm's way as human shields. Homes
became their bunkers. One Islamic Jihad commander told
the Palestinian press that, "Believe me, there are
children stationed in the houses with explosive belts
at their sides."
As Israeli soldiers moved from house to house one
night, a Palestinian ambush killed 13. But even then
the Israelis did not call in an aerial assault that
would have killed far more Palestinians while
protecting Israelis. Instead they sent in bulldozers,
which demolished homes and created the ugly photos
carried by the press but also carried greater risk
of Israeli casualties. After eight days of fighting,
23 Israeli soldiers were dead, making Jenin among
Israel's bloodiest military operations since 1973.
Some civilians also died, though we don't know
how or how many. The Israelis estimate Palestinian
deaths at around 100, mostly gunmen. "Clearly, innocent
lives may well have been lost," Secretary of State
Colin Powell testified before the U.S. Congress
yesterday, adding, "I have no evidence of mass graves.
I see no evidence that would support a massacre took place."
The U.N. wants to send a fact-finding team this
weekend, and this certainly makes sense. Israel
initially agreed, though it now wants to delay the
team until its concerns about the make-up of the
delegation are addressed. The Israelis believe the
group is dominated by human-rights officials, who
should be balanced by experts on military operations
and counter-terrorism. This makes sense too.
And while the U.N. experts are there, they might
also investigate the massacre, by fellow Palestinians,
of Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israelis.
As these columns have reported, that slaughter of
innocents happens nearly every day and in the most
brutal fashion. If they have time, the U.N. team
might also visit Hama in Syria, where Hafez Assad
murdered up to 25,000 of his own people in 1982.
As a democracy, Israel will of course hold
itself to a higher moral standard. And it ought to,
since the best defense of its own military operations
is that they are targeted not at civilians but at
terrorists; meanwhile, the Palestinians target pizza
parlors and school buses. Israel ought to welcome
international scrutiny, if only to offset the
propaganda of its enemies.
If war crimes were committed or the army acted
dishonorably, the perpetrators will be held to account
by Israel's democratic institutions. Yet from what we
know so far, Jenin wasn't a crime. It was another
tragically bloody battle in a war that the
Palestinians started 18 months ago.
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2. UNITED IN FREEDOM
America must stand with Israel against Arab tyranny
and terror.
BY JOHN MCCAIN
Friday, April 26, 2002 Wall Street Journal
There will always be an Israel. The terrorist onslaught
against her people represents not progress towards a
refoundation of historic Palestine but a plunge into an
abyss of moral decay perpetrated in the name of the
Palestinian people by their own leaders. There will
always be an Israel, because the Israeli people will
defend their homeland against murderers who pose as
martyrs, and will never accept justice imposed on them
by leaders who send children to kill their children.
There will always be an Israel, strong and free, because
Israel, and her supporters in this country, will never
allow the depravity of her enemies to obscure the moral
clarity that inspired her founding, 54 years ago last
week, as the homeland of a people who understood evil
long before Americans saw its more recent expression
on September 11.
Terrorism is terrorism, whether in the form of
professional killers who crash civilian aircraft into
buildings or amateur murderers undistinguished by
anything other than their willingness to take innocent
lives.
A political solution to the conflict with the Palestinians
is the best answer to Israeli insecurity, of course. But
no moral nation--neither Israel nor America--can allow
terrorists to chart the political course of its people. No
freedom-loving nation can tolerate a terrorist state on
its border. And no great nation can abandon the
obligations of moral clarity for the convenience of
situational ethics.
If we are serious about the values we in America and
Israel live by, and the opportunities we would like all
people in the Middle East to enjoy, we can allow
terrorists no role in the political process.
Indeed, we must work to spread our values in the
Middle East, first by opposing tyranny in the Arab
world. The celebration of freedom in the streets of
liberated Baghdad will serve as a counterpoint to the
state-directed Arab media's distortion of the Palestinian
conflict. It will be a reminder to other Arab tyrants that
the United States is a natural ally of Arab people who
aspire to freedom. Freeing Arabs from repression by
tyrannical regimes is the priority of neither Yasser
Arafat nor the dictators he counts as his allies. But
bringing liberty's blessings to Arab peoples will do much
more to improve their lives than will their jihad against
Israel.
Unfortunately, when it comes to advocating freedom
and opportunity in the Arab world, our values know few
champions. In the monarchies and dictatorships of the
Middle East, cynicism is the essence of statecraft.
Americans find ourselves handicapped in our Middle East
diplomacy by a native regard for moral clarity.
It is our fidelity to the values Arab leaders reject that
makes it unmistakably clear to Americans who
destroyed the peace process begun in Oslo. The
authors of that disaster were the Palestinians
themselves--and the Arab leaders who encouraged or
accepted Yasser Arafat's rejection of the sweeping
settlement offered by former Prime Minister Barak at
Camp David, and provided rhetorical and material
support for the ensuing intifada waged by suicide
bombers.
I don't think our cultural differences with Arab states
are so vast that a common recognition of what
constitutes real peace and a just settlement is
unattainable. I think Arab leaders know exactly what it
will take to achieve real peace between Palestinians
and Israelis, and that what they currently offer serves
only to perpetuate the conflict.
Telethons and poems glorifying suicide bombers are not
steps toward peace. Cash payments to the families of
suicide bombers are not steps toward peace.
Communiqués glorifying the murder of innocents are not
steps toward peace. All of this is evil, pure and simple.
It is not peace, but fear of each other that motivates
Arab dictators, and fear of their own populations,
whose resentments toward Israel and America have
been inflamed for generations to distract them from
grievances against their own rulers for the economic
and political inequities they are expected to endure
permanently.
It is the unenlightened rule of Arab dictators, not the
plight of the Palestinians, that condemns the Arab
world to the civilizational crisis in which it finds itself.
Which Middle Eastern nation grants its Arab citizens the
most political freedom? Israel. Which countries' leaders
have the blood of innocents on their hands but hear
nothing about it from the Arab League? Iraq, Syria, and
Sudan, for starters. Which country has the most
egregious record of occupying another today? Syria, in
Lebanon. In which countries do Palestinian refugees
suffer without rights and the most basic freedoms?
Other than Israel, only Jordan has treated these people
with any dignity. Which nation in the region has
matched its payments to the families of Palestinian
murderers with money for health care, education, and
other development in the territories? Not one.
How Arab leaders can abide their own hypocrisy is one
question. Why they expect us to do so is a better one.
Arab leaders recoil in mock indignation from any
suggestion that they have a responsibility to
discourage Palestinian treachery. Instead, they demand
that the United States pressure the government of
Israel into forsaking its obligation to defend its citizens
from terrorism that Arab governments celebrate and
support.
I'm also distressed that some of our European allies are
dismissing Israel's legitimate security concerns. In some
quarters, Jews are once again threatened with attacks
on their institutions. We are witnessing once again the
torching of European synagogues. All world leaders
must condemn, in the strongest terms, such despicable
behavior.
Israel has proved its willingness to risk its strategic
interests by returning territories captured in war, and
living cheek by jowl with a Palestinian state in
exchange for peace and acceptance of Israel's right to
exist by its Arab neighbors. Yasser Arafat and the
Palestinian Authority he claims to lead insist on a
settlement that would threaten the eventual extinction
of a Jewish state in the Middle East, and accept and
support murder as a means to achieve it. Official
sponsorship of Palestinian terror is a self-induced
mockery of the Palestinian leadership's moral authority,
and that of its Nobel Peace Prize-winning chairman.
The Oslo peace process was premised on the notion
that Israelis and Palestinians could live together. I
believe it is now time to explore ways in which they can
live apart. It is time to consider alternatives such as
that proposed by former Prime Minister Barak--to erect
a security barrier between the Israelis and the
Palestinians. This is not to accept the hopelessness of
a political solution, but to embrace the hope that
Israel's people can live in safety until a Palestinian
leadership truly committed to peace emerges from the
chaos and despair inflicted on Palestinians for
generations by leaders who lack the courage and
compassion and wisdom to make a better life for their
people.
Friends, I make no claim to wisdom on how to resolve
the crisis in the Middle East. Like you, I look for
guidance in the values we share with the only
democracy in the region. I know this: no American
leader should be expected to sell a false peace to our
ally, consider Israel's right to self-defense less
legitimate than ours, or insist that Israel negotiate a
political settlement while terrorism remains the
Palestinians' preferred bargaining tool.
The moral clarity you bring to American understanding
of Israel's plight is the most effective antidote to the
cynicism and hostility that parade as Arab diplomacy in
the Middle East today. We will defeat terrorism against
America, and we will stand with Israel as she fights the
same enemy.
One of the great privileges of my life was the friendship
that I developed with the late Sen. Henry "Scoop"
Jackson. I got to know Scoop when I was the Navy
liaison to the Senate in the late '70s. Scoop was and
remains the model of what an American statesman
should be.
In 1979, I traveled to Israel with Scoop, where I knew
he was considered a hero. I had no idea how great a
hero he was until we landed in Tel Aviv. When we
arrived, we were transferred to a bus big enough to
accommodate our large delegation, as well as the U.S.
Ambassador in Israel and several of his staff. About a
hundred yards outside the airport, the bus was
surrounded by a crowd of seven or eight hundred
Israelis screaming for Jackson, waving signs that read
"God Bless you, Scoop," "Senator Jackson, thank you,"
and dozens of other tributes. For a patriot like Scoop,
their affection for him was nothing less than affection
for America.
Scoop understood a deep truth. The bond between
America and Israel is not just a strategic one, though
that is important. Today, in the war against terror, we
have no stronger ally than Israel. The more profound tie
between our two countries, however, is a moral one.
We are two democracies whose alliance is forged in our
common values. To be proudly pro-American and
pro-Israeli is not to hold conflicting loyalties. As Scoop
understood, it is about defending the principles that
both countries hold dear.
And I stand before you today, proudly pro-American
and pro-Israel.
Mr. McCain, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from
Arizona. He delivered this speech Tuesday at the
American Israeli Public Affairs Committee.
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3. INSTANTANEOUS KILLINGS OF "COLLABORATORS"!
Ruth Matar - Women in Green
It never ceases to amaze how the so-called "human rights"
organizations are absolutely silent when it comes to the
daily bloody executions carried out by Arabs, without
trial, of those suspected of cooperating with Israel.
Instead, concentration is had by the world media on
grotesque and obvious lies told to them by the Arabs
which they never seriously question. Arab fantasies
conjure up false massacres of Arabs in Jenin, knowing
in advance that the media will repeat and spread
such lies.
The Arabs, of course, want to blacken the name of the
humane Israeli Army, and they find a receptive
audience in the world media. In an atmosphere of the
renewal of world anti-semitism, particularly in Europe,
the Israel Defense Forces are being falsely pictured
as barbaric, when they take the necessary measures to
destroy the infrastructucture of terrorist
organizations. Arafat continuously refused the
prolonged and futile exhortations of him by the
United States and Europe to take the necessary measures
to destroy such terrorism. In the end, Sharon was
finally forced to act to stop the carnage of Jewish
civilians which was occurring on almost a daily basis.
He went into the heartland of terrorism, particularly
the Arab refugee camps and destroyed the armed
resistance of terrorists located there. This was done
at the cost of the lives of Jewish soldiers killed by
using 10 year old suicide bombers and booby trapping
other Israel personnel who sought to reduce Arab civilian
casualties. The Arabs abnormally and deliberately
festered these hotbeds of hatred and hostitlity against
Israel by maintaining such camps over the years. It was
absolutely necessary to root out these evil sources
emanating from these camps. These deliberate
impoverished encampments bred despair and were a
constant basis for violence, and were the main source
of providing "suicide bombers."
The Arab propensity to lie and deceive was never
seriously questioned by the press, radio or
television. Instead most of the world media, and
particularly CNN, BBC and SKY NEWS freely gave to
the Arabs as much air time and press space as they
wanted. This world media freely aired the obvious
distortions and perversions of the true facts.
The victim was pictured by them as the aggressor.
"Evil" became "Good". Jews who normally should
be subjects in need of sympathy and understanding,
were rather pictured as ruthless invaders.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell previously had
legitimized all such sordid actions of barbaric Arafat,
and restored his prestige by meeting with him twice in
Ramallah. Powell thereby showed the confusion that
the U.S.'s double standard engendered. Thus, this
aspect of the immoral behavior of the Bush Administration
was highlighted. In his claimed search for "peace",
Powell merely succeeded in giving the Hitler-like
immoral figure of Arafat prominence. It was truly a
bothched up job, unworthy of the moral leadership
that the United States needs to provide to the world
during these crucial days following September 11.
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4. USING THE SACRED AS A POLITICAL TOOL
B. F. Spears, Jr. 12 April 2002
Yasser Arafat got on his cellular phone Thursday and told
an Egyptian group meeting in a church in Cairo, "The
(Israeli) occupation is going beyond limits, not only
against... our children, our women... (but) against our
Christian and Muslim sanctuaries." He continued, "The
aggression that continues today against the Church of
the Nativity... is a crime... We will continue to defend
these churches regardless of anybody."
What a great guy. As a Christian pastor, I take great
comfort in knowing that Yasser is watching out for my
interests over there.
Yasser Arafat is one of the world´s greatest geniuses at
what I like to call "political multi-tasking." This is
when you´re able to accomplish two - seemingly
incompatible - political goals at the same time. For
instance, you make a vicious attack on an enemy, but
your enemy gets a black eye for being the aggressor.
How does it work?
Arafat sends waves of suicide bombers at a democratic,
open society, moaning all the while that he really wants
peace and that we could have it if Israel would just
stop their aggression. He attacks, but accuses Israel
of being the villain. He wins both ways.
Political multi-tasking.
Now that Israel has refused to be handcuffed by
world opinion and is moving strongly against the PA,
Arafat´s people have to hide somewhere. So what better
place for his thugs to crawl into than a world-famous
Christian church in Bethlehem? In the most cynical
vein imaginable, terrorists hide but in a site sacred
to the world´s Christians with full confidence that
Israel will respect the sanctity of the spot (even
while the terrorists don´t). Then Arafat trumpets
to the world that Israel is committing "...aggression
... against the Church of the Nativity...," that it
"is a crime..." and "We will continue to defend these
churches regardless of anybody."
Arafat cynically uses a sacred spot as a hideout for
murderers, then declares that Israel is trying to
destroy the church. He gets a hideout and Israel gets
the international black eye. Arafat wins both ways.
Political multi-tasking. Watch for it. He does it all
the time. The really tragic part is that much of the
world actually believes it.
The situation in Bethlehem is causing all kinds of
people to find religion.For example, the Egyptians,
who, as mentioned above, hosted the church meeting
that was addressed by the PLO leader. According to AP
reports, what took place on Thursday at the Abbassiya
Cathedral in Cairo was "the first political forum
convened in an Egyptian church since 1919."
Muslim-dominated Egypt may be tough on Christians,
but that won't stand in the way of a public relations
coup. Five thousand gathered to hear Yasser Arafat
lambasting Israel.
The incident does make for a great picture of his
character. Remember, Arafat has a vested interest in
Bethlehem - poor Yasser didn´t get to go to Bethlehem
for Christmas. He was quoted as saying that the
Israelis were keeping him from fulfilling his
"duty to God." The poor guy was so eager to get to
Bethlehem´s Midnight Mass that he was ready to go
"even on foot." Hey, I´m just a Texan, but I never
knew that Christmas was that big a Muslim holiday.
Go figure. Is it remotely possible that Mr. PR himself
was using a religious holiday as a tool to get some
good publicity? Surely he´s not that cynical.
As long as Arafat is so concerned about the poor
Christians in Bethlehem and their church, wouldn´t
it be reasonable to ask how they´re faring? Published
reports have said that Bethlehem´s Arab Christians
dwindled from 60% of the population in 1990 to 20%
in 1998. Notice that the Christians fled while the
PA was overseeing the town. When I was in Jerusalem
in January, a Protestant leader told me it would be
a surprise if the Christian population were even 3%
by now, because of severe persecution by the
Palestinians. In nearby Beit Jala, Christians were
the town´s majority when the Palestinians took over.
We´re now told that more Christians from Beit Jalla
live in South America than remain in Beit Jala
itself. Maybe they just couldn´t stand all that
wonderful "protection" from Arafat and his friends.
Remember Beit Jala? That's where Palestinian
terrorists would sneak into the town to fire at Gilo
across the valley. The gunmen loved to station
themselves as close to the Christian sites as
possible. After all, if the IDF missed their target
and hit a church, it´s a PR bonanza. The Palestinians
intentionally try to murder innocent civilians in
Gilo, but it would be the Israelis who would be said
to have ruthlessly attacked a Christian church,
getting the bad publicity. Political multi-tasking.
Beit Jalla, too, forms a picture of Arafat´s
character. Any religious symbol, anything that
is precious to others, no matter how sacred, is just
another weapon in Arafat´s hand. A world famous
church? Hide murderers inside and accuse Israel of
trying to destroy it. A church in Egypt? Use it as
a public relations prop. A church in Beit Jala?
Shoot Jews from behind it and then hope the IDF
hits it by mistake.
I hear so many people say that if we get rid of
Arafat, he´ll just be replaced by someone else just
as bad or worse. Yet what is Arafat´s real talent?
He´s a master of public relations. He sends the
bombers and comes out looking like the victim.
It´s amazing.
Is there another Palestinian leader who has the
international respect (painful, but it´s true) and the
worldwide political contacts that Arafat has? How
many Palestinian leaders have a Nobel peace prize
in the trophy case? His Rolodex alone would be an
international politician´s dream.
For 38 years, Arafat has presided over an
increasingly shaky coalition of terrorist groups.
These factions have had one common denominator -
a commitment to the destruction of Israel. Yet what
really presents a danger to Israel is Arafat´s
ability to cynically and brilliantly manipulate
world opinion. Is it working? So well that a
significant percentage of the world believes Arafat
is in the right and the Palestinians are victims.
So well that, because of the pressure of that
world opinion, Israel didn´t dare to act forcefully
to protect its own people until two weeks ago.
It´s time for Arafat to go.
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B.F. Spears, Jr. is a pastor in Forth Worth, Texas.
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5. QUOTES TO NOTE
“To tell you the truth, Dad, I though you’ve been
BS-ing me about how the Holocaust could happen again.
Well, you’re right. It could happen again.”
—Ted Sokolsky, vice-president of fundraising for the
United Jewish Appeal in Canada, reporting the words of his
15-year-old son after hearing about antisemitic vandalism
and Israelis being blamed for Middle East violence.
(Globe and Mail, April 20)
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6. HIGHLIGHT ARTICLES
THE STENCH OF HYPOCRISY
There could not have been a massacre in Jenin. The
residents had already committed suicide. When a
society celebrates suicide bombing, not only the
bombers commit suicide. Their families and friends and
neighbors sign their own death warrants. Innocents die
in the crossfire, or as human shields. The Palestinian
Authority armed and financed the killers. Arafat called
for a million martyrs. War against such a criminal
society is inevitable.
http://christianactionforisrael.org/isreport/apr02/hypocrisy.html
IT'S TIME TO SNAP OUT OF ARAB FANTASY LAND
The Arabs have succeeded in luring the West into their
bizarro alternative universe, where land lost by a
foolish king is mysteriously transformed into the
personal property of a terrorist organization, where the
"armed struggle" of wired schoolgirls is UN-approved,
and where the "right to exist" is something to be negotiated.
Fantasy land is fun, but we've encouraged the Arabs in
their peculiar dementias for too long. It's time to get real.
http://christianactionforisrael.org/isreport/apr02/fantasy.html
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For more great reading, visit our new EDITORIAL ARCHIVE
http://christianactionforisrael.org/previous.html
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our Lord is doing for Israel and what great things He will continue to
do for her, His firstborn.
http://christianactionforisrael.org/witness/home1.html
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