The SleepwalkersWhat does it take to make the dreamers admit, if only to themselves, that the Oslo peace process was a mirage? The lynching of Israeli soldiers by a Palestinian mob in Ramallah, their bloodied bodies thrown onto the street from a second-story window? Half a million Moroccans, for 50 years the friendliest of all Arab peoples to Jews, taking to the streets to vilify Israel, burn Israeli flags, and wave Palestinian and even Iraqi flags?
Yasser Arafat contemptuously rejecting every entreaty of a "frustrated" President Clinton to utter a word to his people to stop the rioting, the shooting, the firebombing? Indeed, throughout the little war he started, his state-controlled TV, radio and newspapers have urged his people to ever greater frenzies of blood and martyrdom. There were people who remained loyal to Stalin and the Communist idea through the show trials of the 1930s, the Hitler-Stalin pact, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the Prague spring of 1968, even the publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago. Nothing could shake them. They died as they lived—bankrupt, bereft and with blood on their hands. Today there remain people—indeed, the people running the foreign policies of the United States and Israel—equally reluctant to give up their dream, in this case of Palestinian peacefulness and acceptance of Israel. No reality can shake them. "Administration officials, who acknowledge that they have had trouble really understanding Mr. Arafat, say that in the last several months, they have been unable to read him at all," reports the New York Times. Good God. What does it take? The man is an open book. Within months of the great White House Handshake of 1993, Arafat gave a speech in South Africa promising jihad for Jerusalem. Back home, he repeatedly threatened to abandon "peace" and return to Intifada. His state-controlled media not only denied Israel's legitimacy but conducted a seven-year campaign of incitement and vilification. Then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres, architect of the Oslo peace process, dismissed this rather compelling evidence that he might have misjudged the intentions of his "peace partner" as mere words. Now the words have turned to rocks and bullets and Molotov cocktails. These are harder to ignore. What does it take? At Camp David, Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians an astonishingly generous peace with dignity and statehood. Arafat not only turned it down, he refused even to make a counter offer! Instead, he went around the world trying to get international support for a unilateral declaration of independence and a complete abolition of the Oslo peace process. When he didn't get it, he decided to abolish Oslo and get his state his way—through blood. Why, days before Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount, the pretext for this war, Arafat met with the tanzim, the armed militia, and told them to "be ready." President Clinton finds all this puzzling. After all, he has invested much in Arafat. Arafat, the man who in 1973 authorized the cold-blooded execution of the American ambassador in Khartoum, has been invited by the President to the White House more times than any other leader in the world. Clinton's reward? First, Arafat humiliated him at Camp David. Then he started a war which has brought out anti-American mobs in a dozen capitals, undoubtedly inspired the suicide attack on an American destroyer at port in Yemen, and threatens to bury American interests in a wider Middle East war. The President's aides are not just surprised but confused. "In Paris last week, Mr. Arafat was opaque and then angry, storming out of a meeting and forcing Dr. Albright to run after him," writes the New York Times.
What does it take? At what point does one realize that Israel's concessions and withdrawals, far from satisfying its enemies, have, as in every appeasement, emboldened them? For some dreamers, Arafat's starting a war when peace was offered him broke the spell. "If they can call their children to fight, there is no peace process," reasoned one disillusioned Israeli peace activist. "Maybe we're really at war and it's only us stupid jerks on the left who don't know it."
Lenin called them "useful idiots."
This Dallas Morning News columnist sees hate crimes in an international light. Look East for Real Hate Crimesa columnist for Viewpoints in The Dallas Morning News
Jim, esteemed ex-editor of mine, you oughta have known better. But next day, oddly enough, the question began to take on international relevance. A startled world got to see what real hate crimes look like. They look like the wholly unprovoked assault by seething, wild-eyed Palestinian mobs on three Israeli reservists, whom members of the merciless mob beat and stabbed to death. A still bloodier example: the murder of 17 American sailors in a terrorist attack on a U.S. naval vessel, the Cole. The so-called peace process presided over by the United States rests on the assumption that desire, or at any rate willingness, for peace burns in the breasts of both contending parties. Last week's events expose the barren and naive quality of that assumption. There are various preconditions for peace in the Middle East. Not the least or lightest of them, it would seem, is for Palestinians and other Arabs to stop hating Israelis. What's it going to take for that to happen? Hate crimes legislation endorsed by Al Gore and enacted by the United Nations? And enforced how? Hmmm? The conviction burrows deeper than ever before into the consciousness of those who have watched the Middle East for a long time: The region doesn't teem with innocent lambs. Palestinians will object that since the current violence began, Palestinian casualties have vastly exceeded Israeli casualties. Fair enough. It is equally fair to note that if Palestinian mobs had abstained from throwing rocks at the police, no shots would ever have been fired. There is this, moreover: How many Palestinian policemen have Israeli mobs beaten and stabbed to death? How many Syrian or Egyptian ships have Israeli suicide crews sought to blow up? An aptitude for suicidal behavior is among the more disquieting traits of the Palestinian radicals. It calls to mind imperial Japan's kamikaze pilots, hurling themselves at American ships, knowing they themselves were to die — not caring a rap, doing it for ... the greater glory of something. A culture that breeds this kind of fanaticism and moral lunacy — as imperial Japan bred it, along with death marches, beheadings of prisoners and so on — is a culture that, at the very least, you want to approach with some wariness. You can't tell when, like a mad dog, it will turn and bite. Certainly, the sailors of the Cole couldn't have known they were about to be bitten. The goal we Westerners seek for the Middle East is ... peace? What we might more usefully desire for the region is civilization. Yes, yes — that's a word to make some on the left hold their noses. Leftists don't go around celebrating civilization — the orderly arrangement of relationships and passions. Leftist is the word — one of a number anyway — that properly describes the Arafatists or that dominant portion of the movement that talks of bombing Tel Aviv and driving the Israelis into the sea. It is easy to talk, as Palestinians do, of corresponding offenses by the Israelis. Less easy is to demonstrate such offenses. The Israelis are part of a civilized tradition, the West, which goes off the tracks now and then but more often stays in place. You don't find in either Israeli rhetoric or actions the casual cruelty and hubris customary with the worst of the Palestinians. It is sad to see circumstances operate thus. Not all Arabs, or even Palestinians, are of the wacko party. There exists now, as there has existed for more than a millennium, the very real entity called Arab civilization. It merits deep respect, as Westerners from the medieval Spanish to T.E. Lawrence and beyond have gladly acknowledged. The hatemongers do not live within this civilization. Civilization itself is what they hate, with its intricate code of restraints. Their most conspicuous attribute is hatred. Because they hate, a crime is no crime; rather, it is a patriotic duty, an act of "justice."
We think we wouldn't mind these people running Palestine/Israel? If
so, let us think again; and again; and again.
Zola's Bulletin Board
Our guides report no problems with tours in Israel, which do not visit any areas of unrest. December is one of the most comfortable and affordable times of the year to make your Holy Land pilgrimage. This will be the 69th tour in our tour department's 17-year history. Both of our December tours depart on the 11th. The Deluxe tour returns on the 21st and the Grand on the 25th. Due to unique time differences, you can enjoy Christmas Eve in Bethlehem and Christmas Day at home. Please call Tony or Becky at (214) 696-9760, during office hours, or 1-800-WONDERS anytime.
In Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, CROSS-TV has begun carrying our program on Sunday evenings at 6:00. In Lynchburg, VA, WTLU now airs our program Sunday at 8:30 PM and Monday at 7:00 PM. In Thornville, OH, WSFJ-51 will pre-empt our program Saturday, November 25 and December 2, at 5:00 AM and 9:30 PM. If you have cable TV, then you may be able to watch Zola Levitt Presents late on Sundays on FOX-FAM (midnight Central Time, 1:00 AM on both coasts) or early on Monday mornings on TBN (8:00 ET, 7:00 CT, 6:00 MT and 5:00 PT). Please let us know if you would like one of our free National TV Airing Schedules, or see it online.
To keep your finger on the "peace process" in Israel, you may want to surf by www.peacepulse.com/resources.html. Their dozens of links are categorized into Media Web Sites, Middle East Policy Organizations, Arab Web Sites, Jewish Web Sites, Government Web Sites, Israeli Web Sites, University Sponsored Web Sites, etc. If you don't have access to the Internet, then maybe your local librarian will show you how to visit www.levitt.com. Pointing & clicking is easier than you think!
Sherlock Bally Ministries has invited Zola and several other speakers to
teach during a Bahamas cruise (Feb. 1-4). The topics will include
prophecy and the roots of Christianity. Departing Port Canaveral at 4:30
pm on Thursday, the Carnival Fantasy SuperLiner is so large that it has
a six-story atrium lobby. For more information, please visit
www.ProphecyNetwork.com
or call Joe Vieira at 727-327-0268.
A Note From Zola
Dear Friends, I was amazed by the headline in the Dallas Morning News on October 22: "Battle Call by Arafat Fuels Riot." I think this is the first time since 1964, when Arafat's long and bloody reign began, that an American newspaper has acknowledged that the Palestinian dictator, a terrorist his whole life, has caused the terrorism in Israel. With the media, which dutifully films every Palestinian funeral (have we ever seen so many funerals filmed during "wars"?), the Palestinian mobs are whipped into a virulent frenzy (for the cameras) and fight hopelessly, wielding rocks against guns. Arafat has called them "to continue, wave after wave...until victory." The Israelis, for their part, try to dissuade them as gently as possible, which is not easy with a frantic mob. When one considers the superior weaponry Israel has and the small casualty figures that have actually occurred, we must realize that Israel is being very patient. They are reasoning that there has to be a moment when even the most dedicated Palestinian zealot will understand that this "battle" is pointless and hopeless. At fault is the peace process. Nine years of false hopes and posturing by diplomats and handshakes for cameras have produced exactly nothing; in fact, the process has gone backward. Rather than youngsters throwing small stones at a few border policemen, we now have Palestinian adults using the rifles (given to them to police their own people) against Israeli regular army soldiers. Since false peace is the theme of the upcoming Tribulation period, many feel that the present situation leads directly to the Antichrist. The most serious point of the media coverage of this so-called war is that it brings international pressure to bear upon Israel, which is a major theme of the Great Tribulation. The question comes up, "Why should we pray for the peace of Jerusalem when we know from prophecy that there won't really be peace until the Prince of Peace returns?" The answer to that is that it is God's own request (Psalm 122:6), and that even if the ultimate outcome is Armageddon, peace on any potential battlefield will preserve lives, among which will be some saved souls. We are never to turn our backs on Israel. That is the meaning of our battles with the seminaries, our criticism of liberal churches and our constant teaching of the relevance of the prophets of the Old Testament and the fully Jewish New Testament. Bible, Bible and Bible is the solution to all of Israel's woes and to our own, as well, and any believer knows that. Pretending one is teaching the Bible while one is actually teaching error is no better than pretending to make peace while one is throwing rocks. But just as surely as Arafat cries, as he did in Egypt at the Cairo summit, "This Intifada will never stop," the seminaries cry, "We will never abandon our false teaching." What needs to be understood about the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians is that they are not particularly religious people. Jerusalem doesn't mean much to the vast majority of them, and Israel itself was never their land. And in these rioting mobs there are typically a few rabble-rousers, a bunch of neutral people trying to stay away from the front, and thousands who just yell slogans and pose for TV cameras. And finally, citizen for citizen, the majority of Palestinians would much rather live under the Israeli government than the corrupt regime of Arafat and his henchmen. So would most other citizens of the world. A few more basic facts about the situation on the ground: Despite the hysteria on CNN and the other networks, the casualty rate is very low in this localized rioting. Approximately the same number were killed in New York City during this period, and people continue visiting there all the time. We have passed the level of that number of Americans killed by Americans in Waco. If we double the present rate, we'll come to the number of Americans killed by Americans in Oklahoma City. The Israelis never kill Israelis, and they have no shootings in post offices, schools, etc. I don't know where we get off criticizing other people's "violence." We should realize that news from Israel is equivalent to a highlight film of a sports event. Obviously, when you attend a football game, you don't see all touchdown passes, or in a baseball stadium you don't see all home runs. Movies are invariably less exciting than their previews. There are hours of quiet action, and so it will be when we take our December tour, and our passengers will be mystified as to where all this rioting they were shown on CNN is taking place. The unrest is in West Bank and Gaza areas only, and not in Israel proper at all. It is rather like in our own country where the poor tore up their own neighborhoods. That's all there is to it. There surely is unrest, but it is typical of the unrest we had in Los Angeles, Detroit, etc., during the ghetto riots, and people continued to visit other parts of those cities. But while this is going on, the news keeps repeating that it is the Israelis who are the occupiers, and that the peace process might yet work. Neither one of those things is even remotely true, and the whole world knows it. The peace process can be given credit for nothing. The silly "Arab Summit" in Cairo, the Olympics of Israel-bashing, tried to make world headlines about Israel's supposed "war crimes." Even American reporters are smarter than that (in general). The Dallas Morning News called the unrest an "age-old conflict." In reality, the conflict started in 1987 and is 13 years old. Another columnist, Bill Maxwell, wrote in the Morning News, "Why argue who came first, the Jews or the Palestinians?" Well, the Jews came in 2,000 BC, 4,000 years ago, and the Palestinians in 1964 AD, 36 years ago. So, I'm not arguing, either. Here's an idea going around the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament): If there were a legitimate peace treaty that really held, then the countries would live separately but peacefully in Israel. As things are now, some Knesset members have thought of drawing a line on the ground and building a big fence or whatever, and unilaterally severing from the Palestinians, period. They will show passports like any visitors to come into Israel. If that's how the peace process has to end, then as the Israelis say, "Lu y'hi, Let it be." Please know that we're still planning our Hanukkah/Christmas Tour (see my response to M.N. on page 9). The Deluxe Tour of Israel is December 11-21, and the Grand Tour with the extension to Eilat and Petra is December 11-25. On the Deluxe Tour, you will visit the future battlefield of Armageddon, Mt. Carmel, Nazareth, the Western Wall, the Mt. of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Upper Room, the Garden Tomb, Masada, the Dead Sea, and the Golan Heights. You will view the original Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as the caves of Qumran where they were discovered. You will take a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee, just as our Lord did with his Apostles. Visit the Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, and learn about the lives of those more than 6,000,000 Jews who were killed by the Nazis. Tour the Old City of Jerusalem, learning her history and seeing her beauty that still shines today as it has for so many centuries. Come to the Chosen Land and see God's hand at work in our world today! You can add an extension to Petra, the ancient city carved directly out of the rose-red mountains of Jordan. You will stay in a luxurious hotel in the resort city of Eilat at the southernmost tip of Israel on the Red Sea. Due to time zone differences, you can spend Christmas Eve in the Shepherd's Fields of Bethlehem and still spend Christmas Day at home with family and friends! Call Tony or Becky during office hours at 214-696-9760 for more information, or call 1-800-WONDERS anytime for a full-color brochure.
P.S. My birthday is rapidly approaching—it is December 3—and
as usual, I would appreciate any gifts you wish to send to be given to
the ministry rather than to me. That would make me happiest. Thanks.
Garden-Variety Anti-Semitism
The Times, regarded as our "newspaper of record," would not apologize, but passed the buck to the Associated Press, who originally issued the photograph. The error, it seems to me, is a combination of desperately wanting to indict the Israelis as vicious and hateful, and of garden-variety anti-Semitism. This photograph and how it was handled illustrates why I no longer take the New York Times at my home.
—Zola
The Real SituationWe have people on the ground in Israel both from our TV staff and our tour providers. We have been constantly informed by email as to the real situation over there since it is next to impossible to ascertain from the media. We received the following at publication time: ...the shooting coming from Beit Jala [an Arab Christian village] aimed at Gilo is most probably by the Palestinian Authority paramilitary police (Arafat's people). These "soldiers" enter innocent people's homes and start shooting from their windows or rooftops. The tragedy is that the simple people don't have a say in this type of operation being carried out by Arafat. If they did open their mouths to complain, the thugs would just shoot them on sight.
—Zola
Our Footage: Revealed!
Now viewers can watch The Book of Revelation in its entirety
word-for-word with images, text, narration, music and sound effects
— in one sitting! An occasional actor appears, but for the most
part this production relies on images, narration, typography, pacing,
music and sound effects to tell the story. It has everything from fire,
terror, glory, death and life to every emotion known to man. Zola's
television footage from Israel was key to its creation. To learn more
about this multi-media presentation of Revelation, The Four Gospels and
other books of the New Testament on VHS tapes or DVD, you can call (800)
HOLY BIBLE (465-9242), visit
thebiblechannel.com or
email
.
Life Behind the VeepIn October, I was asked to appear at the dedication of The Potter's House, a church serving a disadvantaged area of Dallas which has added a new sanctuary. My part of the dedication was to give a blessing in Hebrew. To my surprise, several real dignitaries turned up, including Pat Robertson, James Robison, Coretta Scott King, and, at the last moment, Vice President Al Gore. Since I was seated behind the Vice President, folks catching this on CNN and FOX news broadcasts assumed that I was endorsing that candidate. As all Levitt Letter readers know, I avoid talking about American elections. By this time, you are aware of who the new President is, but I am not, as I am dictating this in late October.
So, whoever it may be, please know that if I am seated behind someone on
a stage, it doesn't mean that I am politically behind him. Thanks.
The State of the MinistryPart I: Nepotism or Success Story?
I praise God for I.M.K.'s letter, which inspired many of you to express support for my work here. This ministry's board of directors hired me as General Manager twelve years ago. Now I am thankful that such an accusation necessitates tracing some of the ways God has blessed my presence here. While I've learned from some mistakes, I've also experienced the raw power of God's will to make things work for the good. With humble gratitude, I will highlight a few victories that you and I have shared in this ministry while growing together in the Lord.
The Past 12 of 22 YearsLet's begin with the slide-under-a-microscope approach. If you strip away the varnish that embodies this ministry's image and shine a bright light on it, then you have sinners doing God's work. Blessed sinners, who are forgiven and satisfied with abundant lives, but insatiably pursuing where God's will is taking us next. Before I replaced my predecessor in 1988, this ministry had only its board of directors, Zola, a bookkeeper, a travel manager, a mail supervisor and four clerks. Six months had gone by with my position vacant. The ministry wasn't meeting its bills on time, our equipment was outdated and our office space was the pits. We had to walk through a neighboring tenant's space to get to half of our inventory, which was kept in a leaky area that wasn't climate controlled. In a few months, we got a new landlord, newsletter printer and computer man. My loyalty was to our donors, not our suppliers. We moved from a run-down warehouse showroom to a full-service office building, yet our rate per square foot fell from $11 to $7. The Levitt Letter went from black-on-white printing to two-color while the printing cost dropped 40%! We reduced our newsletter postage by a third by using 9-digit ZIP Codes and bar codes. A mentor, who subsequently joined our board, assisted me with reducing the television airtime rates. Our teaching materials expanded from a tri-fold pamphlet to a 32-page catalog. During the last half of this ministry's existence, we have continually found ways to work smarter, not just harder. Having no real estate, printing presses, sanctuaries, limousines or fancy furniture, we are thankful for faithful employees, volunteers and reliable suppliers. We avoid penny-wisdom and pound-foolishness. We have shown progressively fewer reruns on television. Hundreds of prisoners get both of our free monthly newsletters. On TV and in our newsletters, we publicize fellow ministries. Each month more students earn diplomas from our Institute of Jewish-Christian Studies. Our web site, www.levitt.com, created entirely by volunteers, continues to expand. Shalom, Shalom, our new Messianic congregation, meets at 7:30 PM each Friday at the Biblical Arts Center in Dallas (214) 691-4661. We take four Israel tours per year. Zola speaks at about ten churches and conferences per year. Let us suppose that I was and remain a wretch, unworthy of this position — or, for that matter, eternal life. Of course none of us deserves salvation, but we've accepted this gift. As for competence in my job, if I fail God, He can remove and replace me in a minute. I believe Jesus has blessed this ministry, Zola and me because we have blessed Him. We fear the Lord, and we love Him and serve Him in earnest. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding" (Psalm 9:10). Unlike before, we pay all of our bills on time and offer independently audited financial statements free for the asking. It is to you and before God that I say that I give this ministry a tremendous value — but not more than it does me. To say that I have out-given God or the supporters of this outreach would be wrong. To learn about the ambitious goals that God seems to be putting before us, please read Part II of this article in the December Levitt Letter, entitled Living for Our Work. They are:
It is with humility and gratitude that I give thanks to you for
supporting Zola, me and our staff in our important, individual missions
that contribute to this marvelous outreach. With fewer than twelve
disciples, we reach a million people weekly via television,
www.levitt.com, our free newsletters, the Institute of
Jewish-Christian Studies (an inexpensive correspondence course), books,
music tapes, maps, etc.
The greater the faith, the clearer one's perception of Israel. Here, a syndicated columnist, who is a strong believer, comes right to the point. Piecemeal Destruction of Israel
This has been a piecemeal process, and not one that will lead to peace. Israel has given up land it seized for its own protection following wars started by its enemies. Still, Arabists in the State Department and leftists in Israel proceed with the fiction that peace can be achieved between peoples whose outlooks are irreconcilable. It was a mistake to give up land without reciprocity. It was a mistake to release terrorists from Israeli prisons so they could rejoin their armed comrades. It was a mistake to allow for the creation of a Palestinian "police force," which has been turned into an army. The vandalizing of Joseph's Tomb on the eve of Yom Kippur, while the "police" did nothing is proof that the "police" won't control a mob determined to carry out Mr. Arafat's orders. And the abandonment of that tomb can only encourage Israel's enemies that the Jewish people's strong resolve may be crumbling. The late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir saw what the current Israeli "leadership" refuses to see. In her book, My Life, she wrote:
I have never doubted for an instant that the true aim of the Arab state has always been, and still is, the total destruction of the State of Israel or that even if we had gone back far beyond the 1967 lines to some miniature enclave, they would not still have tried to eradicate it and us. Rioting for the benefit of American and world TV cameras has long been an Arafat ploy. He has orchestrated terrorism and unrest to force concessions out of Israeli leaders that could not be won through war. The visit of Ariel Sharon to the Western Wall was merely a convenient excuse for the rioting to begin. It had been preceded with roadside bombs that killed an Israeli soldier guarding a civilian convoy. Later a Palestinian policeman (terrorist?) killed his Israeli partner in cold blood while they were on a joint patrol. Mr. Arafat explained that the Palestinian was "unstable." There is more violence coming. Iraq, which has not been heard from lately, has been taking a ferocious stand against Israel, unmatched by any state in the region. Iraqi Foreign Minister Muhammad al-Sahhaf referred to Israel as a "midget entity, a usurper and a claw of colonialism....Iraq does not, and will not, recognize this usurper entity." On October 3, Iraqi TV broadcast remarks by Saddam Hussein:
An end must be put to Zionism. If they cannot, then Iraq alone is able to do so. Let them give us a small adjacent piece of land and let them support us from afar only. They will see how we put an end to Zionism in a short time. What piece of land might he have in mind? Some analysts believe he has his eye on Jordan. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, Congress has appropriated $900 million in foreign aid for the PLO. The speaker of the Palestine National Council says the United States has promised $30 billion to help resettle Palestinian "refugees," meaning they will be settled in Israel from which, as we are seeing, they will be used by Mr. Arafat to undermine the Israeli government. There is no evidence Israel's enemies wish to live at peace. Anti-Jewish incitement in PLO school textbooks continues. The PLO Teacher's Guides read: "The student should learn [that] racist superiority is the heart of Zionism, Fascism and Nazism." Among the "important values" that follow is: "Wrath unto the alien thief [Israel] who obliterated the Homeland and dispersed its people." Amnesty International says Mr. Arafat's Palestinian Authority routinely arrests those who oppose its policies, creating an atmosphere hostile to free expression.
New leadership is needed in Israel, as is a new policy by both Israel
and the United States. The current one is an obvious failure. If war
comes, Israel had better win this one, too, grabbing as much land as it
can and never again letting go of it. There will be no peace between
Israel and her enemies. The best she can hope for is to maintain
order.
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JOSEPH FARAH |
Until now, I haven't even bothered to say, "See, I told you so." But I can't resist any longer. I feel compelled to remind you of the column I wrote just a couple weeks before the latest uprising. Yeah, folks, I predicted it. That's OK. Hold your applause.
After all, I wish I had been wrong. More than 80 people have been killed since the current fighting in and around Jerusalem began. And for what?
If you believe what you read in most news sources, Palestinians want a homeland and Muslims want control over sites they consider holy. Simple, right?
Well, as an Arab-American journalist who has spent some time in the Middle East dodging more than my share of rocks and mortar shells, I've got to tell you that these are just phony excuses for the rioting, trouble-making and land-grabbing.
Isn't it interesting that prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, there was no serious movement for a Palestinian homeland?
"Well, Farah," you might say, "that was before the Israelis seized the West Bank and Old Jerusalem."
That's true. In the Six-Day War, Israel captured Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. But they didn't capture these territories from Yasser Arafat. They captured them from Jordan's King Hussein. I can't help but wonder why all these Palestinians suddenly discovered their national identity after Israel won the war.
The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land. The first time the name was used was in 70 A.D. when the Romans committed genocide against the Jews, smashed the Temple and declared the land of Israel would be no more. From then on, the Romans promised, it would be known as Palestine. The name was derived from the Philistines, a Goliathian people conquered by the Jews centuries earlier. It was a way for the Romans to add insult to injury. They also tried to change the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, but that had even less staying power.
Palestine has never existed — before or since — as an autonomous entity. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their homeland.
There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc. Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the land mass.
But that's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today. Greed. Pride. Envy. Covetousness. No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough.
What about Islam's holy sites? There are none in Jerusalem.
Shocked? You should be. I don't expect you will ever hear this brutal truth from anyone else in the international media. It's just not politically correct.
I know what you're going to say: "Farah, the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem represent Islam's third most holy sites."
Not true. In fact, the Koran says nothing about Jerusalem. It mentions Mecca hundreds of times. It mentions Medina countless times. It never mentions Jerusalem. With good reason. There is no historical evidence to suggest Mohammad ever visited Jerusalem.
So how did Jerusalem become the third holiest site of Islam? Muslims
today cite a vague passage in the Koran, the seventeenth Sura, entitled
"The Night Journey." It relates that in a dream or a vision Mohammed was
carried by night "from the sacred temple to the temple that is most
remote, whose precinct we have blessed, that we might show him our
signs. ..." In the seventh century, some Muslims identified the two
temples mentioned in this verse as being in Mecca and Jerusalem. And
that's as close as Islam's connection with Jerusalem gets — myth,
fantasy, wishful thinking. Meanwhile, Jews can trace their roots in
Jerusalem back to the days of Abraham.
Here's a recent example of televangelism, Gaza-style, courtesy of the Palestinian Authority's TV service, which broadcast these words in Arabic nine days ago.
"Oh, brother believers, the criminals, the terrorists—are the Jews...They are the ones who must be butchered and killed, as Allah the Almighty said: 'Fight them: Allah will torture them at your hands...'"
The preacher, Sheik Ahmad Abu Halabiya, former acting rector of the Islamic University of Gaza, was just getting started.
"Oh, you who believe, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies, for they are allies of one another. Who from among you takes them as allies will indeed be one of them," the sheik continued.
And if you are a Jew, or like unto them?
"Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country," he railed. "Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them—and those who stand by them."
You would think such an extraordinary speech put out on a government-owned station, a call to arms demanding mass murder of Jews, Christians and Americans, would have been widely reported in the West.
You would be wrong. A Nexis search finds a mention of the sermon tucked into an Associated Press dispatch and in a story in The Guardian in England.
Those who check in regularly with the web site of the Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memri.org) could have read an English translation of the sermon's text the very next day, thereby getting important news ignored by Western journalists.
MEMRI is a small, nonprofit organization with offices in Jerusalem and Washington, dedicated to monitoring the Arabic-language media in Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories, and translating important dispatches into English.
Yigal Carmon, a retired top Israeli army counterintelligence officer and fluent Arabic speaker, heads the Jerusalem bureau. He says it's important for Americans to know what is being reported and discussed among the Arabs in their own media.
"There is a huge difference between the words and images conveyed by the Arabs to the West and what they say to their own people," says Carmon, 54, speaking by phone from Jerusalem.
"When you get only what they say to Westerners, it's simply not the whole truth. Sometimes 'not all the truth' is worse than a lie."
Mideast scholar Daniel Pipes agrees, saying ignorance of the way the Arab world thinks and talks in its popular media aids and abets Americans' tendency to project their own values onto foreign cultures.
"People are mystified by the failure of Camp David, why Yasser Arafat didn't take this extraordinarily generous offer by the Israelis," says Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum.
"Looking at the Arabic press, you see why. The Palestinians were not interested in what Israel was offering. They thought it wholly inadequate."
What's in the Arab media these days that goes unmentioned in our own?
"Right now, there's a sense of excitement that Israel's on the run, that Israel's weak," says Pipes. "That's pervasive in the Arabic press, but unreported in the Western press."
Carmon says many Western media outlets reporting on the region do not have Arabic-speaking correspondents, relying on locally based Arab stringers.
He suggests that these stringers are unlikely to report information, however newsworthy, that could hurt the Palestinian cause.
Given the limits and prejudices of the American media, there is a real need for the kind of work MEMRI does—particularly in this extremely dangerous time...
 Shots of PA rioters make it look like they're "just caught" by a cameraman. In fact from the other direction, you discover that these rioters have quite an audience and are playing to the cameras. |
Nov 19, 10:30 a.m.
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Palestinians desecrating, burning and destroying brick by brick the
Jewish shrine at Joseph's Tomb? (Jews are now barred from it. There
are reports that a mosque is to be built on the site.)
Opaque? Only to those laboring under the illusion that Arafat has
the slightest commitment to the nonviolence he pledged in the 1993 Oslo
accords. And the image of the Secretary of State of the world's
superpower running "awkwardly in heels" after the leader of a squalid
police state to plead for peace would be comical were it not so
appalling.
Jim Lehrer's Oct. 10 debate question about "hate crime laws" flew out of
left — I do mean left — field straight at the head of George
W. Bush. It afforded Al Gore the chance to posture and shine his rind
for fans of this unprepossessing approach to political correctness.
Lawrence has twenty years of experience as an overseas missionary. After
earning a computer science degree, he attended Dallas Theological
Seminary "under the old guard." Having ministered in ten countries,
Lawrence will initiate the overseas syndication of our television
program Zola Levitt Presents and international distribution of
our teaching materials.
In a case now famous, the American media is shown as the inaccurate
commentator it invariably is in Israeli affairs. The photo at left was
identified in the New York Times as an Israeli soldier attacking
a Palestinian man on the Temple Mount. In reality, the picture shows
an Israeli policeman protecting a Jewish man assaulted by Palestinians
as he emerged from a taxicab. The sign visible behind the policeman is
at a gas station and is in Hebrew. There are no gas stations or roads
at all on the Temple Mount, and any signs there would be in Arabic.
After a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park, forest rangers
began their trek up a mountain to assess the inferno's damage. One
ranger found a bird literally petrified in ashes, perched statuesquely
on the ground at the base of a tree. Somewhat sickened by the eerie
sight, he knocked over the bird with a stick. When he struck it, three
tiny chicks scurried from under their dead mother's wings.