CAFI Newsletter #88
cafi-list@christianactionforisrael.org
cafi-list@christianactionforisrael.org
Fri, 14 Jun 2002 17:49:54 -0400
***********************************************************
* CHRISTIAN ACTION FOR ISRAEL NEWSLETTER #88 *
***********************************************************
"ON YOUR WALLS, O JERUSALEM, I HAVE APPOINTED WATCHMEN"
Isaiah 62:6
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Friday, June 14, 2002
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT
2. TELL IT LIKE IT IS
3. MUDDLING THE MIDEAST
4. VERDICT 'GUILTY,' TRIAL TO FOLLOW
5. QUOTES TO NOTE
6. HIGHLIGHT ARTICLES
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1. WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT
Our site (and newsletter) are privately owned and
operated, and receive no institutional, denominational or
inter-faith funding. We depend ENTIRELY on viewer/reader
donations.
P L E A S E HELP US get the truth out about Israel
and God's chosen people.
WE CAN ACCEPT YOUR VISA DONATIONS USING OUR SECURE SERVER.
http://christianactionforisrael.org/repform.html
If you prefer, cheques
(one-time and post-dated ongoing support)
should be made payable and mailed to;
CHRISTIAN ACTION FOR ISRAEL
PO Box 69562
109 Thomas Street
Oakville, Ontario
Canada L6J 7R4
Thank you again for your help, and God Bless.
Alan C. Lazerte
CHRISTIAN ACTION FOR ISRAEL
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2. TELL IT LIKE IT IS
by Arlene Peck - June 11, 2002
It’s a good thing I’m not in government. At least,
not in Israel. Because I have never given a damn
about the political correctness of it all. As far as
my feelings about the kamikaze sub-humans that strive
for ‘martyrdom’ by blowing up Israeli kindergarten
classes – they should die preemptively. I mean it.
It has now reached the point that we need to meet
them on their own terms, by not only hunting down
the terrorists themselves and destroying them, but
also by hunting down their family members and friends
who share these same evil intentions and will most
likely act on them one day.
We should start with the proud mom who screams at
the coffin of her child, all the while clutching a
check from America’s good friends, the Saudis, for
$25,000 and hoping maybe that the family can
collect another ten or twenty thousand from Saddam
or Arafat. Hey, after all, it’s only payment for
raising such a good example of Palestinian youth.
But, I wouldn’t stop there. If Israel would locate
the house of the terrorist, and his cousins’ house
next door, and, without risking the life one
Israeli soldier, drop a bomb right on it, then maybe,
maybe, it might get the potential terrorists’ attention.
If, possibly, these evil people who raise their
children for hate and destruction for monetary gain
in fulfilling their mission of ‘martyrdom’ are
shown that their plans to annihilate Israel aren’t
working, then, they might think twice. If they
weren’t given the chance to spend their terrorist
funds, then possibly their neighbors would hesitate
in strapping fake bombs on their three year olds
at rallies. We’ve all seen the pictures of them
marching around holding toy guns. However, if
daddy and uncle are impressed enough, then it
might get through their evil heads that they won’t
get a chance to spend their money. I truly
believe that the only way to stem terrorism in
Israel is to liquidate those who know, aide and
abet the killers and their families.
If I remember correctly, Moammar Qaddafi was no
different than Arafat at one time. At every chance,
he carried out terrorist attacks against the
United States and supported those against Israel.
That is, until US President Ronald Reagan dropped
a bomb on his palace and his daughter was killed.
It was an unfortunate way to make your point.
However, after that, his methods changed. It’s been
a long time since Qaddafi has been a major player
in the terrorism game. Now, the American President
spoke to graduating military cadets and told them
that the only way to win the war of terrorism is
by going on the offensive, not the defensive. Let
him remember that thought when it comes to Israel.
I am weary of Palestinian ‘victim hood’. More so,
I am beyond tolerance of their obsession with Israel.
Frankly, it reminds me of the loser who never had a
date for the prom. Everyone was at fault. Nobody
wanted to go out with him. Instead of accepting
the fact that maybe, just maybe, his attitude,
personality and appearance left something to be
desired, it was a lifetime aura he carried around
of the poor, poor victim - dumped on by womenkind.
The Arabs somehow have reached the twenty-first
century with a ninth century mentality. The Arab
war is not so much that of religion, but that of
mentality. Their motivation has always been to
continue their hatred of Israel and teaching each
generation how they are oppressed. If it weren’t
so illogical I could almost find it amusing that
there are 300 million Arabs and five million of
these Jewish ‘oppressors’. Give me a break! With
all of the oil in the Arab world, there are billions
and billions of dollars that could have been used
for their people in research, education and medicine.
Instead, much of it has been spent in the casinos
of the world or shops in London. It would have been
easy to bring their people into the modern world.
Yet, they would rather keep their population in
wretched camps. How much easier it would have been
to share their good fortune rather than blame,
blame, blame the United States and Israel for all
their misfortune. Can anyone name three
accomplishments of the modern Arab world? I won’t
even begin to list the pages and pages of Jewish
contributions to medicine, art, literature, etc.
Probably, in today’s crazy times, I would be
criticized for it anyway.
It would be politically incorrect.
Hell, we’re so crazy about not hurting anybody’s
feelings in America that we go out of our way not
to profile middle-eastern visitors to our land
because we don’t want law-suits from them. Has
anyone noticed who the perpetrators of the heinous
crimes against humanity that we are trying to
prevent are? A movie recently opened which was
about terrorism. However, they couldn’t show it
like it is, where the real terrorists were Arabs.
Instead, they had neo-Nazis as the ones dropping
the bombs on American cities. Really. Show me
how many Nazis there are around lately who are
planning terrorist attacks. The people in
Hollywood didn’t want to take the chance of
lawsuits from the Arab community for portraying
the truth.
Next, they’ll be showing films with the bad guys
coming from New Zealand.
All in order to be ‘politically correct.’
----------------------------------
Arlene Peck is an internationally syndicated columnist
and television talk show hostess. She can be reached
at bestredhead@earthlink.net. or through her website,
ArlenePeck.com.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3. MUDDLING THE MIDEAST
New York Post - June 14, 2002
No one can fault President Bush for tolerating a
staff with wide-ranging viewpoints. But it sure would
be nice if the administration as a whole spoke with
one voice.
Alas, statements this week by Secretary of State
Colin Powell and Bush himself about the possibility
of a Palestinian state make Team Bush look about as
unified as, well . . . the Arabs and Israelis.
At the same time the president was downplaying the
imminence of a new political entity for Palestinian
Arabs, Powell was playing it up, claiming that some
form of statehood was inevitable.
Bush "knows . . . it may be necessary to have a
provisional state," Powell told London-based
Al Hayat on Monday.
"I think almost everybody" has come to that
conclusion, he said, adding that the new state was
something Palestinians "can put their hopes in,
their dreams in."
And he refused to dismiss Yasser Arafat as a
negotiating partner. "We are not in line with
[Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's] position
that we should not work with Chairman Arafat,"
Powell said.
Bush seems to see things differently. He has
rejected calls for a timeline for a new state,
for instance. And Monday, as Powell talked to
Al Hayat, Bush threw darts at the idea that dealing
with Arafat is the only alternative.
"No one has confidence in the emerging
Palestinian government," Bush said.
"I am disappointed" in Arafat's leadership.
What gives?
Is the administration purposely trying to muddy
the picture - so as, perhaps, not to have to take
either the side of Israel or of any Arab country,
like Egypt, whose support it wants for the War on
Terror? Are they trying to send one message to
the Israelis and another to the Arabs?
If so, it won't work. Instead, a dual-message
strategy is more likely to erode confidence
in Team Bush's word.
In any case, an interim state would merely further
the goals of Palestinians bent on Israel's destruction.
As a recent poll showed, Palestinians will not be
content with Israel's withdrawal from the West
Bank and Gaza: They want Israel gone. And their
terrorists will keep up their attacks until it is.
Will Israel be able to pursue terrorists in an
interim Palestine? Not easily.
Appeasing Palestinians in the hope that "tough"
issues could be resolved later was the mistake of
the Oslo process. Under Oslo, the Palestinian
Authority was given land, an armed police force
- an army, actually - and an infrastructure, in
exchange for "peace" with Israel.
The result: more terrorism than ever.
The Bush folks need to make it clear to everyone
that they understand that.
And they should do it in unison.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4. VERDICT 'GUILTY,' TRIAL TO FOLLOW
By CAROLINE GLICK Jerusalem Post
Speaking before the Knesset Law Committee on Tuesday,
Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein warned lawmakers
that the new International Criminal Court, set to start
operating on July 1, is liable to indict and try for war
crimes any Israeli citizen who moves across the Green Line.
According to the Rome Treaty of 1998 which established
the ICC, "The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the
Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population
into the territory it occupies" is considered a war
crime. This subtle departure from the 1949 Geneva
Conventions is designed to render private citizens
who move voluntarily to "occupied" lands such as
French Hill in Jerusalem into war criminals on the
order of Saddam Hussein who gassed thousands of
his own citizens.
The claim that Israel is an occupying power is
dubious at best. But given the international community's
acquiescence to the Arab propaganda machine's spurious
legal argumentation, this little clause deliberately
introduced by the Egyptian delegation means that all
Israeli communities in Judea, Samaria, the Gaza Strip,
the Golan Heights, the Jordan Valley, and post-Six
Day War neighborhoods in Jerusalem can fall into the
Rome Treaty's definition of war crimes.
What differentiates the ICC from the already existing
World Court at the Hague is that, whereas the World
Court can only try government officials sued by other
governments, the ICC also has jurisdiction over
individuals against whom charges may be brought by
other individuals. Thus, not only are Israeli
officials including line soldiers liable for their
actions before the world tribunal, but regular
citizens are also open to prosecution.
It doesn't even matter whether Israel ratifies the
treaty or not. The ICC can indict, try, and imprison
anyone. Alleged crimes committed by nationals of
non-member states can be referred to the court by
member states or the UN Security Council. If neither
refers a matter to the court, prosecutors can take
matters into their own hands and indict nationals
of non-member states if it so pleases them.
This is the reality we will be living under come
July 1. The ICC's building is under construction
and by next year, prosecutors and judges will have been
appointed. It has happened. And the danger to Israel
emanating from this court is far from theoretical.
The groundwork for turning Israel into the first
and principal state against which the ICC will take
legal action has already been laid.
As we saw at the UN's Orwellian conference on
racism last August, the European-based international
community views Israel as a criminal state. Zionism,
we were told by the overwhelming majority of
delegates to the conference, is a noxious form of
racism. The Holocaust is just one of many human
rights abuses and should be referred to with a
lower-case "h." Jewish self-determination is a
new form of apartheid which, by the way, is also
defined as a war crime by the Rome Treaty.
So, Israelis are Nazis. The international community
has judged the IDF guilty of committing a massacre
at the Jenin refugee camp. Preemptive assassination
of Palestinian terrorists is a war crime and
incursions into Area A are war crimes.
In Europe, as synagogues burn to the ground, Israel
is daily portrayed by the mass media as a criminal
state. And, ahead of the official opening of the
ICC, Palestinian delegations have flocked to the
Continent to make the case for indicting IDF
officers and government officials by the new tribunal.
We must pause for a moment to recognize the
enormity of the current distortion of reality. Today,
Israeli officials are forced to warn us that we face
a grim future of defending against accusations of
war crimes. Meanwhile, sitting inside the Land of
Israel is the Palestinian Authority, an entity
laced from top to bottom with war criminals all
breathlessly awaiting the formation of the new court.
At Tuesday's Law Committee meeting, Rubinstein and
State Attorney Edna Arbel assured Knesset members
that the Justice Ministry will defend any law-abiding
Israeli citizen forced to stand for trial before the
ICC. Rubinstein appointed Assistant State Attorney
Rahel Sucor to head an inter-ministerial committee
mandated to plan for all possible contingencies
that may arise as a result of the court's operations.
This is, of course, all necessary and well and good.
But to truly defend Israel against ICC action, it
is necessary to assess how this danger has
befallen us in the first place.
The entire notion of an international criminal
court, empowered to try and punish those guilty of
heinous crimes such as genocide and crimes against
humanity, was spawned by Jewish jurists. Since the
1950s, both Israeli lawyers and Jewish lawyers from
the Diaspora were at the forefront of the effort
to establish such a court. Haunted by the Holocaust,
these well-meaning Jews, like the late Israeli
Supreme Court Justice Haim Cohen, believed that it
was imperative that the international community
have a legal means to enforce humanitarian law
against criminal governments to prevent the
recurrence of atrocities like the Holocaust.
The problem with these efforts is that they were
born of a fallacy. This fallacy was the belief that
the Holocaust was the result of a procedural
rather than moral failure and its recurrence
could be prevented by a change of procedure
rather than a transformation of values.
At Tuesday's Knesset session, international law
professor Ruth Lapidot alluded to this fallacy in
explaining that she would not recommend "relying
on judges if they come from some of the countries
which have already ratified the agreement." These
countries include Belgium, which obnoxiously opened
and refuses to close its war crimes case against
srael's prime minister; Nigeria, where women are
routinely sentenced to death by stoning for
unsubstantiated allegations of adultery; and
Jordan, where "family honor" killings of women
are not considered murder, and whose bar
association will disbar any lawyer who refuses
to abide by its professional boycott of Israel.
The Rome Treaty opens by declaring, "All peoples
are united by common bonds, their cultures pieced
together in a shared heritage." But as we see when
Hamas chieftain Sheikh Ahmed Yassin explains that
Palestinian terrorism will in the end destroy
Israel because Israelis place too high a value on
life, and when Palestinian mothers encourage their
children to become suicide bombers, we do not
share common bonds and heritage with our enemies.
So too we found, as Theodore Herzl warned, that
when it comes to the Jews, the beautiful rallying
cries of European universalism "Equality, Fraternity,
and Liberty" do not necessarily apply.
The sad truth is that Israel was founded because
of the failure of European slogans. Israel was
established too late to defend those who it was
originally envisioned to rescue. Our state's
very existence in fact is the result not of
European procedural failure but of European
moral failure. It was a momentary awakening of
European conscience that enabled the UN General
Assembly to accept the establishment of the
Jewish State in the Land of Israel in 1947.
What we see today, as Israel has been and
continues to be criminalized in Europe in a
manner which echoes pre-Holocaust anti-Semitism,
is that the European conscience has again
fallen asleep.
The US understands the fundamental moral
distortion of a court that would dare to try
American nationals in front of a tribunal
composed not of their peers, as the US
Constitution provides, but by an international
community inimical to the very values the court
purports to represent. Because of this, the
Bush administration rightly gave notice on
May 6 that it would not ratify the Rome Treaty
in spite of President Clinton's 11th hour
signature to the accord.
Although the US remains justifiably concerned
that the ICC will exercise its self-proclaimed
right to try US nationals despite the US
government's refusal to join the court, given
the US's financial leverage over the UN, the
likelihood of this occurring is remote.
Israel has no such financial leverage, and
Israel's increasing diplomatic isolation provides
scant tools with which to fight for our rights in
international forums.
The only real weapon at Israel's disposal is
the justice of our cause. To mitigate the clear
danger the ICC manifests to the Jewish state,
Israel must combat it on moral grounds. The
first step in this direction is for the Israeli
government to rescind its signature to the treaty.
This signature, proffered by a cynical Barak
government on the eve of the 2001 elections, is
nothing but an abject surrender of Israel's moral
ground. The move came after staunch pressure by
EU-backed and now financed Justice Minister
Yossi Beilin.
In rescinding its signature, the government
must stipulate that it views the present
international atmosphere, where the Jewish
state is criminalized, as inimical to the values
that European governments in particular claim to
espouse. Israel should explain, that given the
present international hostility towards the
Jewish state, it is clear that the international
community, as ensconced in the ICC, is morally
incapable and unworthy of judging Israel.
Alan Baker, the Foreign Ministry's legal adviser,
told the Knesset on Tuesday that Germany and
Canada have both promised Israel that they will ensure
the already highly politicized ICC will not be
politicized in a manner that persecutes Israel.
After canceling its signature to the treaty, the
Israeli government must hold all governments to
this promise. To do so, Israel must threaten and
enact harsh diplomatic sanctions against any
country that attempts to legitimize in any manner
the indictment or trial of any Israeli national
by the ICC.
It is very sad that Israel, which worked so hard
for so long to see the establishment of the ICC,
is now forced to condemn this institution as
morally reprehensible. However, the Jewish state,
as the embodiment of millennia of Jewish values
of justice and law, must accept responsibility for
its role as champion of our values first for
ourselves, and afterwards for all humanity.
The international community, through word and
action, has proven that the only way for Israel to
advance its mission is for Israel to heed its own
unpopular calling of continuing to be an example
of morality and justice for the international
community to follow.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
5. QUOTES TO NOTE
"IF THE ARABS PUT DOWN THEIR WEAPONS TODAY
THERE WOULD BE NO MORE VIOLENCE.
IF THE JEWS PUT DOWN THEIR WEAPONS TODAY
THERE WOULD BE NO MORE ISRAEL."
------------------------------------------------
"All those words like reform, diplomatic
horizon and breakthrough are nonsense. There's
no diplomatic horizon, and there will be none
until there's a decisive military victory."
Minister without portfolio Effi Eitam, leader of the
National Religious Party, insisting that renewed
terror attacks warrant the launching of Operation
Defensive Shield II in the West Bank.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
6. HIGHLIGHT ARTICLES
PALESTINIANS ARE NOT READY FOR STATEHOOD
Ever since Yasser Arafat appeared to embrace the idea
of the State of Israel alongside a Palestinian state
in 1988, and the Israeli government accepted the notion
of a Palestinian state by signing the Oslo Accords in
1993, it was presumed that the peace process was moving
toward a two-state solution. Commentators such as
myself have embraced this concept for years. Sadly,
however, I now sense we were wrong. Put simply, the
Palestinians are not ready for statehood.
http://christianactionforisrael.org/isreport/june02/not_ready.html
WHEN HITLER BECAME ABU ALI
When Hitler took power in 1933, telegrams of
congratulations were dispatched from Arab capitals.
In 1937, Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels
praised the Arabs' ''national and racial conscience,''
noting that ''Nazi flags fly in Palestine and they
adorn their houses with Swastikas and portraits of
Hitler.'' In 1943, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the
SS, spoke highly of the ``natural alliance that exists
between the National-Socialism of Great Germany and
the freedom-loving Muslims of the world.''
http://christianactionforisrael.org/antiholo/hitler_abu.html
----------------------------------
For more great reading, visit our new EDITORIAL ARCHIVE
http://christianactionforisrael.org/previous.html
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A PALESTINIAN STATE ?
Is It Inevitable? - Or Is It A Disastrous Idea?
http://christianactionforisrael.org/palstate.html
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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.
http://christianactionforisrael.org/witness/home1.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
PLEASE FORWARD TO FRIENDS AND ENCOURAGE THEM TO SUBSCRIBE
Archive: http://www.pairlist.net/pipermail/cafi-list/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS NEWSLETTER.
Comments/Suggestions newsletter@christianactionforisrael.org
SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE INFO BELOW.