November 1997: Volume 19, Number 11

Contents A Note from Zola Jewish Enemy Concerning the Bill for Religious Censorship Information Please For Israel Bashers Only A Note From Zola This has been a newsworthy month for Israel, which is our chief concern (and the chief concern of the whole church, if the truth be told), and this country. For one thing, I learned that there were 2,500 attempted bombings in the United States in 1994! That certainly amazed me, but it seems we are very good at thwarting these things before they actually happen. The Israelis are, too, and naturally there are far more attempts than we hear of, but we certainly hear of those that are successful in either country. Concerning new building of Jewish homes in Jerusalem, the Palestinians accuse Israel of trying to encircle the city. But, it should be pointed out that the opposite is also true. Palestinian building is progressing at a tremendous rate in Jerusalem. As the accusers commit the same sin of which they accuse their opponents, both sides are gearing up for final negotiations. Three-hundred units proposed for Efrat actually date back to Rabin’s administration. Efrat is most certainly Jewish territory, biblically speaking: "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah [modern Efrat], though thou be little among the thousands of Judah..." (Micah 5:2). Surely the Arabs will argue, however, that Jews are building on "Arab land." The Catholics in France have apologized for not doing more to thwart the French government that handed Jews over to the Nazis. They said they were sorry, but it was too little and fifty-some years is far too late. The Vatican didn’t do much better, the truth to tell. This is not to say that the evangelical church had much of a better record. Frankly, six million Jewish people were murdered while virtually everyone except a few Corrie ten Booms and Oscar Schindlers looked the other way. The trial of the French official Papon, who sent more than 1,600 Jews, including 220 plus children to their deaths in Nazi concentration camps, is not going very well. The defendant complains of his three bypasses and cannot stand the pressure. The judge excused him from waiting in prison through his trial, a most unusual procedure under French law. I have had six bypasses on my heart since 1982, and I am doing fine. I would only feel better if this Nazi were given the death sentence that he so richly deserves. The trial is bringing out France’s complicity with the Nazis. Modern French people are finding out that their democracy is based on myth. I have had personal experience with French anti-Semitism, and I believe that they can compete with the Nazis and the Arabs as Jew-haters. Who do Bill Clinton and Al Gore really work for? Why were millions of dollars raised to beat the underdog, Bob Dole, in the last election? Where was the money spent, and how do we get an accounting of it? Does anyone really believe these are "campaign funds" that are solely spent on campaigns? If Israel somehow came to Christ for its salvation and the people were Messianic, all of their problems would be solved in a day. Christian nations would likely take Israel’s side of things and the distinction between what would then be the Christian Jews and the Moslems would be clear. That is the situation that will exist in the Kingdom to come. "All Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26). For all the headlines, Moslems equal fourteen percent of the total population of Israel Israel is certainly not the only Middle Eastern country being tormented by Moslems. 1,234 Egyptians have been killed since the Madrid Peace Conference was undertaken, far more deaths than in Israel. And, of course, Algeria has suffered 60,000 murders in the same years, but we ignore that situation since it does not affect the price of oil. The heaviest contributor to both of our political parties far and away is the oil and gas industry. It purchases more favors from Washington than anyone else. If our government is for sale, they are certainly its best customers. Swiss banks are still finding Jewish accounts from the Holocaust years that they had somehow "lost." They’ve enjoyed the money for more than fifty years, but in a New York Times ad on October 14, 1997, they promised to look into those accounts "without cost to the claimants." In other words, if they stole your money or your family’s money some fifty years ago, they’ll look and see if they can find it, and they won’t even charge you for looking. Thanks for nothing. If American security is so tight and so excellent, how is it that U.S. peace negotiator Dennis Ross interrupted my breakfast by walking through the Holiday Inn Crown Plaza Hotel in Jerusalem with security men all around, but no one seeing me. I was close enough to have gotten up and told him what I really thought of his peace process, and it was quite a temptation. You still have time to get on board for our Hanukkah/Christmas Tour. Please keep in mind that our December itinerary is quite a bit less expensive than the high-season tours. We are charged hundreds of dollars less, and we are happy to pass those savings along to you. Our Deluxe Tour departs December 13th and returns on December 22nd. Your Bible will come alive to you as we visit scriptural locations in the Holy Land. We will board a boat and cross the Sea of Galilee as our Lord often did. We will visit the Mount of Beatitudes, where our Lord preached His magnificent Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five. We will view Nazareth where Jesus was born, and we’ll be baptized in the Jordan River where our Lord Himself was baptized. These are just a few of the sites we will partake of on the Deluxe Tour. Our Grand Tour includes the historic city of Petra and beautiful Eilat. This tour departs December 13th and returns December 26th. We will cross over into Jordan and view Mount Nebo, where the Lord allowed Moses a glimpse of the Promised Land. For an unforgettable Christmas Day, we will visit the Shepherds’ Fields near modern Efrat, the "Bethlehem Ephratah" of Micah 5:2, where scholars believe the true manger was. We are taking registrations now, so please call our answering service at 1-800-WONDERS (966-3377) for your travel folder, or call Cynthia at 214-696-9760. Your messenger, Return to Index Jewish Enemy by A. M. Rosenthal This New York Times columnist is one of my personal favorites. His clear-eyed view of the true situation in Israel gives the lie to his own newspaper’s bias against that country. This story ran in response to the Israelis’ assassination attempt of Hamas’ spiritual leader in Jordan in October. In the 50-year struggle against Arab terrorism, every Israeli prime minister has combined three strategies, in the hope that fewer Jews might be murdered. That seemed to the West to be an acceptable goal, until recently. Israeli intelligence services tried to find terrorists before the bombs exploded. If not, then while pieces of Jewish bone were being pieced together for burial, Israel applied the second strategy , pressure against all Palestinians. The objective was to bottle up and capture some terrorists or force Palestinians to go after them. But few Israeli leaders really expected Palestinians to risk their lives fighting other Palestinians to save Jews from murder, and they didn’t. Yasir Arafat’s police chief says he would not turn over a bombing suspect to the Israelis, "never." Third, Israeli prime ministers tried to kill terrorist leaders whose job and pleasure it was to order the rounds of terrorist bombings from safe havens abroad, usually in nearby Arab nations. Israelis crossed some borders to protect their citizens from terrorism, which depends on recognizing no borders. The West itself has suffered from mobile terrorism , the French from Muslims and the British from Irish bombers. The U.S. was the favorite target, the World Trade Center, C.I.A. headquarters in Virginia, U.S. barracks in Saudi Arabia, aboard Pan Am 103 and in Germany. Like his predecessors, Benjamin Netanyahu went after a terrorist commander. Khaled Meshal is chief of the Hamas "political" department, which includes military and terrorist matters, and Hamas headquarters in Jordan. Israel says he gave the orders for the most recent round of bombings in Jerusalem. He loves travel. In 1992 he spoke in Oklahoma City to a militant Islamic group about jihad, "the Jewish enemy" and the "flood of Jews that will roam the entire area" if Muslims lose "the battle for Palestine." Mr. Netanyahu accepts responsibility for the Amman botch-up and the bonanza for Israel’s enemies. But neither Israelis nor foreigners of good will should tolerate the wave of hypocrisy that has followed Amman. In 1986 President Reagan sent U.S. planes from England to bomb Libya after Libyan terrorists blew up U.S. soldiers in a German discotheque. About 100 Libyans were killed. Now an American Administration calls the attempt to kill one terrorist an act of "political assassination." The French are aburst with indignation. They imagine they have made peace with terrorists by making multibillion-dollar contracts with terrorist states like Iran. President Mubarak of Egypt calls the Israeli attempt a terrible immorality. This is the same man who in 1985 arranged a getaway aboard an Egyptian military plan for the terrorists who captured the cruise ship Achille Lauro and killed a U.S. citizen aboard. The plane was intercepted by U.S. jets; America cheered. Outdoing even Mr. Mubarak for sanctimony are those American Jews who supported Israeli attacks on terrorists abroad under Labor prime ministers but viciously denounce Mr. Netanyahu’s attempt. They will never forgive him, not for failing in Jordan but for winning in Israel. King Hussein is a sensible and outgoing leader , except sometimes, as when he backed Saddam Hussein in the gulf war, or permitted the Hamas headquarters in Amman. In 1994 he signed a peace treaty with Israel. Since then he has not allowed terrorists to train in Jordan. But the Hamas headquarters Mr. Meshal heads gives orders to Palestinian terrorists directly or via Syria. It exists in defiance of a commitment in the pact that neither signatory would permit "acts or threats" of violence to originate from its territory. The King balances himself delicately in Jordan against militant Palestinians who have tried to overthrow him. Israel therefore did not publicly demand the expulsion of Mr. Meshal. The result was that the Western public knew nothing about the Amman haven. The Israeli attack seemed miserably handled, which it was, and unjustifiable, which it was not. One day, terrorism may end, a still-distant day when the Arab world ends its half-century war against Israel, permanently. Until then, saving Israeli lives from terrorism is not an abomination but a duty no Israeli leader can surrender. Return to Index Concerning the Bill for Religious Censorship The following item ran as an advertisement in an English language newspaper in Israel during our tour last month. The Messianic Jewish community is answering the Israeli government’s threat to pass legislation censoring its publications. In defense of a bill for religious censorship in Israel, Knesset members and others have described the Messianic Jewish community in Israel as traitors who work for the destruction of the Jewish people, [and as] emissaries of malevolent foreign forces. We do not recognize ourselves in these dark descriptions. We Messianic Jews are Jewish and love to be so. We celebrate all the Jewish feasts with relish and willingly identify with our people, their history of suffering and triumph, their present struggle and their great hopes. We love the Tenach and read it with religious fervor. We are Jews and intend to remain such, regardless of the fervency of some in the nation who seek to deny us the right to do so. Our faith is as sincere as is the unbelief of our detractors. We believe as we do, because we have been convinced to do so by the Tenach. We pay taxes and serve in the IDF with enthusiasm (which is more than can be said of some of our detractors). Of course we’re not perfect! At times we act in a manner unworthy of our faith in the Messiah. But we have chosen to live in Israel because we love our people and intend to be a part of their future in every sense. We believe that the resurrection of Jewish nationhood in its own land is a gracious act of God, and we want to have a part in that act. Yes, we openly profess faith in Yeshua as the Messiah of Israel and we do not submit to the spiritual leadership of the rabbis. Yeshua is our Chief Rabbi, our Spiritual Leader. We accept the New Testament as the continuation of the Torah and of the words of the Prophets. These opinions are born out of conviction and an honest appraisal of the Tenach. We call upon our nation to consider seriously the truth of our claims. This is not conversion to another religion (hamarat dat) but the courage to stop, assess and reconsider one’s religious opinion (dey-ah-datit). Jews have always dared to swim against the stream and follow their honest convictions regardless of the consequences. We call upon our nation to allow in Israel freedom of religious expression, and not to try to muzzle us by establishing a religious censorship. We will not allow ourselves to be silenced. By the grace of God, we will continue to believe and to speak as we do despite any sanctions, which threaten the democratic nature of our State. A Jewish State, yes! But a State that is both Jewish and democratic, brave enough not to forbid others the right to express their opinions openly. A brave, Jewish and democratic State, not a State subject to the Halacha [the branch of rabbinic literature which deals with the religious obligations of members of the Jewish faith]. The Messianic Action Committee P. O. Box 75 Rishon LeTsion 75100 Israel Return to Index Information Please Author Unknown One of our viewers e-mailed this touching, spiritual story to us. We wanted to share it with you. When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished, old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother talked into it. Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person, her name was "Information Please," and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anybody’s number and the correct time. >My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn’t seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway, the telephone! Quickly I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. "Information Please," I said into the mouthpiece just above my head. A click or two and a small, clear voice spoke into my ear. "Information." "I hurt my finger..." I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough, now that I had an audience. "Isn’t your mother home?" came the question. "Nobody’s home but me," I blubbered. "Are you bleeding?" "No," I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts." "Can you open your icebox?" she asked. I said I could. "Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger." After that I called Information Please for everything. I asked her for help with my geography, and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math, and she told me my pet chipmunk I had caught in the park just the day before would eat fruits and nuts. And there was the time that Petey, our pet canary, died. I called Information Please and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was unconsoled. Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers, feet up on the bottom of a cage? She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, "Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in." Somehow I felt better. Another day, I was on the telephone. "Information Please." "Information," said the now familiar voice. "How do you spell 'fix'?" I asked. All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Then, when I was nine years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. Information Please belonged in that old wooden box back home, and I somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the hall table. Yet as I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me; often in moments of doubt and perplexity, I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy. A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half an hour or so between planes, and I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then, without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator, and said, "Information Please." Miraculously, I heard again the small, clear voice I knew so well say "Information." I hadn’t planned this, but I heard myself saying, "Could you tell me please how...to spell fix?" There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, "I guess that your finger must have healed by now." I laughed. "So it’s really still you," I said. "I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time." "I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls." I told her how often I had thought of her over the years, and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister. "Please do, just ask for Sally." Just three months later I was back in Seattle... A different voice answered Information, and I asked for Sally. "Are you a friend?" "Yes, a very old friend." "Then I’m sorry to have to tell you. Sally has been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago." But before I could hang up, she said, "Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?" "Yes." "Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down. Here it is. I’ll read it. Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He’ll know what I mean. I thanked her and hung up. I did know what Sally meant. Return to Index For Israel Bashers Only The Committee for Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) consistently analyzes press and network reports on Israel. The reports are generally so biased that it has been necessary to create several organizations as media watchers to correct their errors and omissions. Concerning the recent terrorism in Israel, CAMERA’S conclusions were as follows: With the exception of NBC, all the networks shared the following omissions and biases: Little or no coverage of the stern Congressional response to the terrorist attack. Repeated focus on the future of the "peace process" with no examination of Palestinian violations of the Oslo Accords. In particular, scant emphasis, or none at all, on Arafat’s role in inciting violence. Repeated characterization of Israeli attempts to enforce security measures as "punitive," following the line of the PA [Palestinian Authority]. Repeated directing of unchallenging or indulgent questions to PA representatives while Israeli officials were challenged rigorously. Lack of investigative follow-up regarding the ability of Palestinian officials to know that the terrorists did not come from their autonomous areas before the identities had been established. Repeated unchallenged airing of the view by Palestinians and "analysts" that the terrorist attacks were a consequence of Israeli intransigence regarding closure and building policies. Following is an excerpt from A. W. Tozer’s book, The Incredible Christian. "The Ministry of the Night" To do His supreme work of grace within you, He will take away from your heart everything you love most. Everything you trust in will go from you. Piles of ashes will lie where your most precious treasures used to be... Slowly you will discover God’s love in your suffering. Your heart will begin to approve the whole thing. You will learn from yourself what all the schools in the world could not teach you, the healing action of faith without supporting pleasure. You will feel and understand the ministry of the night; its power to purify, to detach, to humble, to destroy the fear of death, and what is more important to you at the moment, the fear of life. And you will learn that sometimes pain can do what even joy cannot, such as exposing the vanity of earth’s trifles and filling your heart with longing for the peace of heaven. Return to Index Return to Levitt Letter Archive Index Return to Home Page