July 2003 Personal Letter

Dear Friends:

Our recent tour to Israel went very well, as usual. It’s routine to go and see no violence whatsoever. For all the headlines, the casualties in Israel are specifically located in outlying areas not concerned with Biblical sites. And all our pilgrims were immediately struck by the fact that they were misled about the alleged dangers presented by visiting Israel. Our television crew came along on this tour and taped in particular the Golan Heights and any number of fascinating Israeli personalities.

I’m weary of saying it, but when one of these “peace proposals” comes along, negotiators sit down and while they never solve the real problems that are preventing peace, things do calm down for a time. I therefore urge you to take advantage of this and come on the next tour with us since, once again, this one will tend to be a bit smaller than usual due to the irrational anxiety of many would-be travelers.

I advise you to register early for the November tour; on our most recent trip four people who signed up late were very lucky to catch a secondary flight, so they arrived a little later than the rest of our group.

I talked to all kinds of people on “the Jewish street” in Israel and received all sorts of opinions about the current Road Map negotiations. But the judgment of most is that this current plan is simply another Oslo-style accord that won’t work. Everyone is just posturing to please Bush and Powell, but no one is taking it too seriously.

Hopefully this whole Road Map scheme will be discarded before it ushers us into the Tribulation Period. But there’s little sign of this. Washington is not troubled by the loss of Israeli lives and continues this ridiculous idea in spite of blatant Palestinian terrorism.

Sherry Zinger, an American living in Israel and a recent victim of terrorist attacks in Jerusalem, noted, “President Bush, who I voted for and I respect, does not understand what goes on here. I’d like to see him come to the country and visit and talk with Americans who moved here and see what really it’s all about before he decides to put a peace plan into action. And I just think it’s sad that he doesn’t have any clue about what we’re going through as Americans here.”

The attack in which Zinger was wounded was all-too-familiar. A Palestinian terrorist blew up an Israeli bus, targeted to have a maximum number of children returning home from school. And once again the international press is suggesting that the Israelis are to blame for the attack.

Here’s how Moshe Kempinski, writing in the Israeli publication Shorashim (“Historical Roots”) of the Old City, described this despicable attack and the probable response by the American press:

Over 15 Israeli citizens killed in Terror bombing on 14A bus near the Clal Building; 84 are reported injured with at least two fighting for their lives.

The horrific wait begins to find out who is home and who has not made it home. Again parents look for their children and children look for their fathers and mothers.

We are also waiting for the obscene comments from the world press regarding the “cycle of violence.” Israelis attempt to assassinate a terrorist and the Palestinians kill innocent men, women, and children. That is called “a cycle of violence.” That is the obscene equation that is drawn in this world wherein evil is camouflaged behind a painful mixture of business, political and racist interests.

I was saddened to hear President Bush make a comparison between the “extremists of both sides.” That is to say that the Jewish settlers that have built makeshift homes on the barren hilltops of Judea and Samaria are equated with the cruel murderers of the innocents.

It is a comparison I have learned to expect from CNN and the BBC and not from an American President who had the courage to call evil, “Evil.” We await further information and pray for the wounded.

Recently Cal Thomas, in a Jewish World Review article entitled “Terrorism Pays,” noted that such violence is the result of forcing Israel to give up land for peace while making the Palestinians do nothing in return. He wrote:

If Israel dismantles so-called “settlements” while Yasser Arafat and his crony, Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, add to their long list of broken promises the promise to end terrorism, the establishment of a Palestinian state will serve as a launching pad for the final assault on Israel and the elimination of that nation as a Jewish homeland and a beacon of democracy in the region.

Some cabinet members who voted for the plan, including Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, explained that while they had serious reservations about the “road map,” they did not want to anger the United States.

The Road Map contains what should be unacceptable concessions by Israel in exchange for meaningless assurances by the Palestinian side. These concessions include Israeli withdrawal from land it captured for its own security in the 1967 war, which was started by Israel’s neighbors with the express intention of wiping Israel off any road map (a goal that remains unchanged). These concessions would put Israel in grave peril from her enemies, which now possess more sophisticated and lethal weapons than they used in each of the previous wars.

In the past, Israel has said it would start implementing the Road Map only after Palestinians crack down on the militias. Terror got the Palestinians to the brink of their objective, so why would they give it up now when total victory seems so close? Hamas has said it intends to continue killing Israeli civilians, regardless of any agreements.

Many on the right in Israel and the United States hope the acceptance of the Road Map is merely a feint by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who should know better, given his experience in war and in politics. He has seen and heard the sermons, editorials from the Arab press, television programs, Palestinian textbooks and classroom videos, all of which express hatred of all things Jewish, Christian, Israeli and Western and uphold “martyrdom” as the highest “calling” of any and all Palestinians. Given such a history, why would any reasonable person not believe them?

A dangerous game is being played by the US State Department, extending over several administrations. Ignoring, or downplaying, Palestinian terrorist acts and choosing to pressure Israel into making dangerous concessions (while accepting empty and unfulfilled promises from Israel’s mortal enemies), American officials have laid the groundwork for Israel’s destruction on the installment plan.

In his memoir, The White House Years, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger reveals how Washington ignores or minimizes evidence of Arab violations of peace agreements: “Israel, with her survival at stake, cannot afford to take chances. The nature of the Israelis’ situation is bound to influence their interpretation of ambiguous events. We, on the other hand, have an incentive to minimize such evidence, since the consequences of finding violations are so unpleasant. Violations force us to choose between doing something about them and thus risk the blowup of our initiative; or doing nothing and thus renege on our promises to Israel, posing the threat of her taking military action. Accordingly, we tend to lean over backwards to avoid the conclusion that the Arabs are violating the cease-fire unless the evidence is unambiguous.”

That philosophy continues to be practiced and believed in this State Department. In his autobiography, Warrior, Ariel Sharon writes about peace: “A widely acceptable formula must somehow be found so that Israel can take the initiative in the peace process rather than be relegated to responding to the demands of others. Then, after we had the most nearly bipartisan approach that we could come up with, we should if possible attempt to get American support on substance. At that point, when our house is in order and our allies are with us, then we can approach the Arab nations.”

Sharon adds that two prerequisites must be in place before progress can be made: “The first is that peace must be equally important to both sides, to Arabs as well as Jews. The second prerequisite is that the peace process cannot be rushed.” Sharon wrote that in 1989.

Nothing has changed, except the “peace process” is being rushed and the Road Map has not been widely accepted. Other than that…

You can’t negotiate with terrorists, yet this is what the US government is trying to do in the current peace process. We should know when we have a bad idea — and give it up. For example, Hamas, in a statement to the Reuters news service, said: “The [recent] Jerusalem attack is the beginning of a new series of revenge attacks…in which we will target every Zionist occupying our land. We call on international citizens to leave the Zionist entity immediately to preserve their lives.”

Why should we negotiate with those who threaten us with murder?

Nadia Matar recently noted in an article that appeared in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot (and which we are planning to reprint in our upcoming Levitt Letter), that each new round of peace negotiations is very similar to the movie Groundhog Day in which the central character repeats the same day over and over because he hasn’t done something right. Matar then continued:

We have returned to the nightmarish days of Oslo, as if we had never been there before. Ten years ago they sold us those stories as if “Arafat has changed and has become more moderate — let’s give him a chance — we’ll give him cities, weapons, and ammunition, and he’ll fight the real terrorists of the Jihad and Hamas….” After every terrorist attack, the same familiar mantra was chanted over and over: “We won’t let the extremist opponents of peace stop the process.” After ten years of Jewish blood being shed by that same Arafat and his cohorts, making use of the arms, ammunition, and cities of refuge that they received from the Oslo architects, we could have expected that our new political leadership would find another way for us to deal with this problem.

But now — just as in the movie — we… are, once again, being forced to “wake up yesterday” and repeat the Oslo nightmare, as if the last ten years had never happened…. And they repeat the same empty slogans that we heard in the past: “[Palestinian Prime Minister] Abu Mazen [also known as Mahmoud Abbas] is a moderate — let’s give him a chance….” And less than a week after the Aqaba summit, in which seven [now twenty-three] Jews have already been murdered, we once again hear the same familiar refrain: “We will continue with the process, despite the terror attacks”!

There is an alternative to the suicide agreements! Instead of formulating — together with the Arab enemy — plans for the expulsion of Jews from Eretz Israel, the wicked PLO Authority and the other terrorist organizations must be eliminated, and Israeli sovereignty imposed on all of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

While reflecting on my tour of the Midwest this summer, I was struck by a short article in Israel Today about ancient Jewish shnorrers. Shnorrer is a Yiddish word that means “scrounger” or even “parasite” today, but in the past the shnorrer had a more noble function similar to that of the troubadour. During the Middle Ages, before there was any reliable way of spreading information, these Jewish singers, who were conversant with the Yiddish language, passed the latest news to their Jewish listeners.

Reading this article, I realized that this is very like what I’m doing today. I’m a musician traveling to churches and colleges, teaching the latest news accounts and relevant endtimes prophecy. The ironic twist is that today the real news must be passed along this way because The New York Times, CNN, etc., are all poor sources for unbiased information. And so I go out as a shnorrer to preach the important news that the end is coming (and I often perform on the piano and recorder).

Again, my schedule for speaking at colleges across America’s Midwest has open dates in August and September. Churches from the Midwest to Denver are very welcome to give a call to Cynthia at (214) 696-8844 or Claudia at (817) 417-0059 to see if we can work a few more stops into our calendar.

The Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), September 27 this year, is traditionally the Jewish New Year and a day of celebration and merriment. It’s also a time that the seriousness of sin begins to weigh on the hearts of the Jewish people, and they are to repent. Many Bible scholars feel that, in some year, the Feast of Trumpets will be the day of the Rapture. If the Lord tarries, come join us in Dallas at the Biblical Arts Center on September 27, for a real Feast of Trumpets/Israel Solidarity Day. Contact Tony at (214) 696-9760 for more information.

Our fall Holy Land tour is scheduled a little later than usual, allowing us to pass the savings on to you. The Deluxe Tour, Israel only, will depart on November 2nd and will return on the 12th. Our Grand Petra Tour, visiting both Israel and Petra, will depart on the 2nd and return on the 16th. The Grand Athens Tour, cruising the Greek Isles and touring Israel, extends from October 29 through November 12. Finally, our Ultra-Grand Tour, with everything — the Greek Isles, Israel and Petra — will begin on October 29 and end on November 16.

Regardless of the tour package, you can be sure that the memories will last a lifetime. For more information or the confirmation of tour dates, check with Tony at (214) 696-9760 during business hours. You can also call 1-800-WONDERS (1-800-966-3377) anytime for a brochure on this or any of our other tours.

Remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Your Messenger,

P.S. Please visit www.levitt.com and click on, “Zola on Internet TV.” We have dramatically improved the size and clarity of our Internet broadcasts of Zola Levitt Presents, plus the sound is terrific.

Finally, with the improved technology, watching TV programs on the Internet is quite enjoyable, especially if you have a high-speed connection.