Imam: Mosque is a jihad factory

May 8, 2009

You know how American troops are very careful not to target mosques  in military operations? Respect for religious sites and all. Perhaps time to rethink that strategy. From Israel National News:

A Muslim cleric in the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist organization has redefined the purpose of the mosque, generally known around the world as the Islamic house of worship.                                                                 

In a video clip of a televised sermon broadcast on Al Aqsa (Hamas) TV on April 24, the unidentified cleric declared, “True foundation and education start in the mosques… “ A transcript of the sermon, in subtitles, was provided by the Washington-based media watchdog organization, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).

The point made by the cleric underscores the importance of security measures carried out by Israel Police on Fridays at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, especially during periods of tension, prior to Israeli national and Jewish holidays, or immediately following terror attacks.

“Do you realize what the mosque is? It is a prime factory educating men to fear and please Allah; [it is] the prime factory for educating Jihad fighters,” the cleric continued in the video clip. “The mosque is the life of Muslims, and the symbol of their courage and honor.”

During his sermon, the cleric also explained that even a Muslim fetus is not free of the obligation to make war.

“The Palestinian fetus in its mother’s womb, the Muslim fetus throughout the world in its mother’s womb, call [on Muslims] to unite through fear of Allah, through pleasing him, and through choosing Jihad and Resistance [terror],” he proclaimed.

Obama to confront a Middle Eastern nation over its nuclear program...

...But it's not Iran! How’s this for change?

May 7, 2009

Iran gets a hug. Israel gets a warning. The Bamster’s latest foray foreign policy has left many heads spinning. The West has come to accept his tactful strategy of “talking” to Iran. Even Israeli Pres. Shimon Peres said Israel accepts, even cheers the U.S. in chatting with Ahmadinejad. 

So it came as a shock when this news was reported in the Washington Times: 

President Obama's efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons threaten to expose and derail a 40-year-old secret U.S. agreement to shield Israel's nuclear weapons from international scrutiny, former and current U.S. and Israeli officials and nuclear specialists say.

The issue will likely come to a head when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Mr. Obama on May 18 in Washington. Mr. Netanyahu is expected to seek assurances from Mr. Obama that he will uphold the U.S. commitment and will not trade Israeli nuclear concessions for Iranian ones.

Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, speaking Tuesday at a U.N. meeting on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), said Israel should join the tUniversal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea, ... remains a fundamental objective of the United States," Ms. Gottemoeller told the meeting, according to Reuters.

She declined to say, however, whether the Obama administration would press Israel to join the treaty.

A senior White House official said the administration considered the nuclear programs of Israel and Iran to be unrelated "apples and oranges."

It’s no wonder Israelis are nervous about Obama. A recent poll of Israelis showed that while 60 percent said they had either a "somewhat favorable" or "very favorable" opinion of Obama, and 14% said their attitude toward him was unfavorable, only 32% of the respondents said they approved of Obama's policies toward Israel, and 21% said they disapproved.

The Hebrew-language newspaper Yisrael Hayom (Israel Today) noted in an editorial today that the American demand that Israel sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is nothing new, but questions the timing. "The [American] government is currently showing a terminological openness toward policy initiatives that are not to Israel's liking. This willingness must not be applied to the policy of ambiguity that has characterized Israel's nuclear policy for decades."

More numbers in the poll: 66% of Israelis said they would support military action if diplomatic and economic efforts failed to stop Iranian nuclear armament and 75% of them would support this action even if Obama was opposed.

Pilgrim of Peace?

Christians are ambivalent; Jews are apathetic; some Muslims are angry, some are attending mass

May 7, 2009

Pope Benedict XVI announced that he is coming as a "pilgrim of peace" to the Holy Land, and indeed, many positive expectations can be attributed to his visit. But lurking among all religious groups in the country is a quiet murmuring about the Pontiff's time here.

Muslims: Benedict offended Muslims worldwide when he quoted in September 2006 a medieval description of the religion as "evil and inhuman" and "spread by sword." In Nazareth, Imam Nazem Abu Salim and his followers strung up a banner across the city's main square warning the Pope: "Those who harm Allah and His Messenger – Allah has cursed them in this world and in the hereafter, and has prepared for them a humiliating punishment." Benedict did not endorse the text, and made it clear that it did not reflect his own views, but Muslims violently protested in cities around the world and even attacked churches in Palestinian areas. The Northern Islamic Movement called on Muslim leaders to boycott interfaith meetings that are to be held during the Pope's visit. 

Nevertheless, many Muslim students who attend Christian schools in Nazareth and Bethlehem will be attending mass with their classmates.

Jews: Benedict offended Jews when he reinstated Holocaust-denying bishop Richard Williamson a couple months ago. Another lingering issue is the proposed beatification (one step below sainthood) of Pius XII, accused of ignoring the Holocaust. Because of that, Benedict will visit Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial but will not go inside the main room which has a plaque critical of the former World War II era pope.

During Operation Cast Lead in January, the Pope appeared unsympathetic to Israel when he sympathized with Gazans. He mentioned during a mass the deaths of Palestinians killed in Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which Israelis found unfair since he never mentioned the daily rocket attacks on southern Israel, ongoing for nine years.

Christians: You would think that the Christian community would be most thrilled about this visit, but a general skepticism has pervaded the rankled minority. A Jerusalem resident, who once lived in Bethlehem, said he has no expectations from the Pope. He ticked off on his fingers the reasons: 1. the last time a Pope was here, the economy proceeded to head south after his visit (that could, technically, be attributed to the intifada, not the pope); 2. the Pope is visiting, like his predecessor, a Palestinian refugee camp and will probably make a monetary donation there, like his predecessor did in 2000. There are no Christians in a refugee camp - why give them the money and not the Christians who are also struggling economically? So asked this unhappy Christian who has long since left the West Bank with no plans of returning.

Christians in Gaza are also offended that the Pope is visiting Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, but not going to Gaza. Admittedly going to Gaza would be a security nightmare. But they are upset nonetheless.

Israel activates 'Operation White Cloak'

May 7, 2009

Operation White Cloak is underway. Really, I could stop writing right there: I love the name 'White Cloak.'

Yes, this is the Israeli security detail for protecting the Pope, replete in his white robes, but without his Popemobile, deemed "not safe enough" by Israel's ultra-vigilant security. Israel is deploying 60,000 police officers and 20,000 secret service agents and soldiers during the week of the tour, most of them in Jerusalem.

Protecting the Pope is the most intense security detail for Israel, according to Raphael Ben-Hur, senior deputy general of the tourism ministry, even greater than that of visiting American presidents.

“The Pope is one of the most important people all over the world and we have to secure him,” he said.

I was here for U.S. Pres. George W. Bush's visit nearly a year ago to celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary. He was only here three days but the city was shut down. Certain streets were forced to evacuate and if any cars remained, they were towed. The entire neighborhood of the Central Bus Station, a major transportation hub, was desolate during Bush's speech at the convention center. I walked about a mile after the event until I could even find a taxi to catch. The neighborhood was vacated.

The Ministry of Tourism is expecting between 10,000 to 15,000 additional tourists in conjunction with Il Pappa's tour of the Holy Land. At the Nazareth mass, an outdoor arena will hold 40,000 people, while the Jerusalem mass will accommodate 5,000 to 6,000.

The State of Israel has alloted 43 million shekels (a little more than $10 million) for the trip. The Pontiff's official tour has been a good excuse for the three cities on his tour to get a much-needed facelift, just like the last papal tour in 2000 when John Paul II visited. Olive trees have been planted in the Kidron Valley in Jerusalem. The walkway down to the mass site - in the valley between the Eastern Gate of the Old City and the Mount of Olives - is getting repaved so as to accommodate the Popemobile. The area was once a haven for drug addicts and dealers. Now it is a massive construction site which must be done for Tuesday's mass.

Nir Barkat, Jerusalem’s mayor, has a vested interest in the trip too because it shines the spotlight on his city. Bringing 1 million tourist s a year to Israel’s capital was a stated goal of Barkat’s campaign. This international exposure should be a boon to the city.

Already, an extra 10,000 to 15,000 tourists are expected in conjunction with the pope’s visit.

In Nazareth, an amphitheater for the mass has been built along with a helicopter pad, according to a reporter who visited there. New roads, sidewalks, and other general construction needed since the founding of the state, she said. I can't wait to see it myself. Nazareth, the city where Jesus was raised, now has a Muslim instead of Christian majority, a switch in the last few decades.

As I've reported before, Christians in Israel and the Palestinian territories are leaving for various reasons. Here is some info from the website Palestine Facts:

After World War II, Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, was 80% Christian and Nazareth 60%. Now those percentages are 20% and 30% respectively, and are shrinking. Jerusalem Christians were a plurality in the 1920s; today, they number under 2 percent of the city's population.

Serious violations of religious freedom are reported from within the Palestinian Authority, especially the persecution of Muslims who have converted to Christianity. In the Christian town of Bet Jella, a human rights lawyer reported brutal interrogation methods and arbitrary arrests based on fabricated criminal charges against Muslims who have converted to Christianity and their families. His report includes testimony about torture from victims who were terrified to criticize the Palestinian Authority and their secret police.

In Nazareth, the Christian population has decreased dramatically due to the rise and spread of militant Islam. The Islamic Movement (a radical Muslim group) has demanded the construction of a mosque near the Church of the Annunciation, a mosque even some moderate Muslims oppose. On Easter, 1999, the Muslim group burned Christian stores and targeted Christians over the issue; attempts to intervene were frustrated because Christians are terrified to speak out.

Hundreds of Christian families have left Palestinian towns like Bet Jella and Bethlehem during the al-Aqsa intifada, caught literally in the crossfire between Palestinians and Israelis. On the West Bank, a nearly-permanent Muslim boycott of Christian businesses is achieving its objective: driving the Christians to emigrate.

In October 2000, Christians were attacked in Gaza after a Palestinian Muslim leader called for a "jihad" against both Jews and Christians.

In February 2002 a Muslim mob, including Palestinian Authority Special Forces, burned Christian businesses and attempted to destroy the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches in Ramallah. The attack occurred after a Christian man killed a Muslim while being pursued by a Muslim gang because he refused to pay protection money for safe passage to his home.

Christians in the Palestinian territories will also get to see the Pope - about 200 Gazans have received passes to attend the mass in Bethlehem. I had thought there were only 2,000 Christians of the 1.6 million residents there, but latest statistics claim there are 3,800. I'm not sure that these passes were actually issued either.

Obama Avoids Calling Armenian Killings 'Genocide'

Why were people really expecting him to be different?
April 25, 2009

Article first published here.

JERUSALEM -- As Armenians around the world gathered Friday to remember their tragic shared heritage, President Barack Obama called the 1915 massacres of 1.5 million Armenians by Turks a “great atrocity,” but failed to label it genocide as he’d promised during his campaign.

The president’s position disappointed many Armenians, who feel the U.S. is once again downplaying the mass murders.

“At least when someone promises, as a presidential candidate, something of this significance, we expect him to be true to his promises,” said Sarkis Mesrobian, an Armenian pilgrim to Jerusalem from Los Angeles.

In a speech on Friday, Obama called the killings “one of the great atrocities of the 20th century,” but fell short of campaign promises, as have many of his predecessors, to label it a genocide.

In many ceremonies and protests around the world, the mood of the day revolved around expectations over Obama’s promises and strong record on the genocide. Armenian groups were confident that Obama and the U.S. Congress would officially recognize the genocide despite jeopardizing relations with Turkey.

On his website, Obama even writes that, “the Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides.”

In a written statement today, Obama said his “view of history has not changed.”

Nevertheless, in a ceremony in Jerusalem on Thursday, a priest in the Armenian monastery, Father Pakrad, called Obama’s previous statement a “pledge gone with the wind.”

“We are fully aware that the Armenian Genocide issues has become a political stand for the U.S. government instead of its becoming a pure moral issue,” he said in a speech. “Obama believes that each country must work through its past and hold out the promise of a new day. One thing he is not aware of is that ever since the Armenian Genocide our history has been halted because the genocide issue is unresolved.”

The United States and Israel, both with significant Armenian populations, are among the countries who have yet to officially recognize the genocide. Ankara denies that a genocide occurred and says the death toll has been inflated and was a result of civil war.

Even if Obama was on course to recognize the genocide, his intentions could have been derailed with an announcement this week by Turkish and Armenian officials that they are negotiating to ease a 16-year economic blockade Turkey has placed on Armenia since its war with Azerbaijan.

Obama praised the two countries’ efforts to overcome their differences and said he was “not interested in the U.S. tilting these negotiations one way or another while they are having a useful discussion.”

As they did in cities around the world, Jerusalem Armenians held a mournful memorial mass today then staged a protest at the Turkish consulate. Congregants packed into Saint James Armenian church for a two-hour long service in memory of relatives killed in death marches, massacres, starvation and disease. Outside the Armenian monastery in the Old City, posters in three languages called for genocide recognition.

Just days after the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel, Armenians in Jerusalem pled with Israeli passersby in Jerusalem’s Old City to recognize their own plight. A scattered few Israelis who did join the memorial in Jerusalem said they felt shame that their government wouldn’t officially recognize the genocide.

Lehi Shachar, a student from Haifa, came to Jerusalem to stand in solidarity with Israel’s Armenian community.

“I wanted to come, especially on this day, to identify with the people because of our history,” she said referring to the Holocaust against the Jews in Nazi Germany. “It is absurd that the Israeli government doesn’t recognize this day.”

A Turkish reporter covering the Jerusalem protest said he admits there were killings, but he “cannot call it an ethnic cleansing.”

“The diaspora Armenians want first that they recognize it as a genocide, but the Armenians in Armenia want dialogue,” said Osman Sert, Jerusalem bureau chief of TRT. “This (genocide recognition) is blocking everything. “In Armenia, they have economic problems and they want normalization.”

Armenian Genocide Day - For Justice

Reminder: Tomorrow is the little thought-about genocide commemoration of 1.5 million Armenian people

April 23, 2009

I'm going to be marching with and writing about the Armenian Genocide memorial day tomorrow in Jerusalem. For those not familiar with this Holocaust, I have compiled some information. The Turks have rewritten history, have raised a generation believing a lie and, some countries, like the US and Israel, have let them get away with it in the name of strategic relations. The Armenian people cannot begin to heal unless their pain has been acknowledged.

Info from this site.

One and a half million Armenians were killed in the Armenian Genocide, carried out by the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1916. Armenians commemorate this on April 24, because it was on that day in 1915 when 300 Armenian leaders, writers, thinkers and professionals in Constantinople (present day Istanbul) were rounded up, deported and killed. On that same day, 5,000 of the poorest Armenians were butchered in the streets and in their homes. 

The genocide was systematic: Armenians in the army were disarmed, placed into labor battalions, and then killed. Then the Armenian political and intellectual leaders were killed. Finally, Armenians were told they were being relocated so they embarked upon what became known as "death marches." Many died in this way - either starving to death or succumbing to the brutal conditions of the desert. On the Black Sea coast, Turks loaded Armenians on barges and sank them out at sea.

The Turkish government denies that there was an Armenian genocide and claims that Armenians were only removed from the eastern "war zone."

The Armenian Genocide, however, occurred all over Anatolia [present-day Turkey], and not just in the so-called "war zone." Deportations and killings occurred in the west, in and around Ismid (Izmit) and Broussa (Bursa); in the center, in and around Angora (Ankara); in the south-west, in and around Konia (Konya) and Adana (which is near the Mediterranean Sea); in the central portion of Anatolia, in and around Diyarbekir (Diyarbakir), Harpout (Harput), Marash, Sivas (Sepastia), Shabin Kara-Hissar (þebin Karahisar), and Ourfa (Urfa); and on the Black Sea coast, in and around Trebizond (Trabzon), all of which are not part of a war zone. Only Erzeroum, Bitlis, and Van in the east were in the war zone.

The American people, via local Protestant missionaries, did the most to save the wretched remnants of the death marches, the orphaned children. The New York Times published some 150 articles on the slaughters in 1915. (from a documentary on the Genocide by Two Cats Productions.)

Despite Turkish denial, there is no doubt about the Armenian Genocide. For example, German ambassador Count von Wolff-Metternich, Turkey's ally in World War I, wrote his government in 1916 saying: "The Committee [of Union and Progress] demands the annihilation of the last remnants of the Armenians and the [Ottoman] government must bow to its demands."

Much documentation exists from foreign consuls and businessmen, not to mention genocide survivors. Henry Morgenthau Sr., the American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, sent a cable to the U.S. State Department in 1915: "Deportation of and excesses against peaceful Armenians is increasing and from harrowing reports of eye witnesses [sic] it appears that a campaign of race extermination is in progress under a pretext of reprisal against rebellion."

Morgenthau's successor as Ambassador to Turkey, Abram Elkus, cabled the U.S. State Department in 1916 that the Young Turks were continuing an ". . . unchecked policy of extermination through starvation, exhaustion, and brutality of treatment hardly surpassed even in Turkish history."

One Turkish government, that of Damad Ferit Pasha, has recognized the Armenian genocide. In fact, that government held war crimes trials and condemned to death the major leaders responsible.

The Earth Day farce

April 23, 2009

I decided to skip the Earth Day event at the Old City walls this evening, for what I believe is good reason. By not watching the farce, I spared myself copious amounts of eye rolling and a lethal dose of sarcasm. 

Jerusalem decided to copy the US and turn out the lights on the Old City walls for a nice energy-saving hour. But on my way to the Old City today, I saw increased cop patrols (completely necessary considering the president and mayor would both be there) creating a lot more pollution. I saw trucks carting in electrically powered decorative orb-like objects. Friends told me that they saw a children's model project of a windmill powered by wind, was powered by the wind of a fan, electric naturally.

Sound systems were carted in and speeches were made. More energy and hot air. Then the lights went out. I wonder what the net gain would be for that hour, especially after the previous 12 in setting up the event.

It isn't a bad idea to conserve energy, but to expend more to make your conservation more dramatic? Don't make me sneer. I want to be happy. Really.