A Yad L'Achim special: Eight hareidi-religious Jews in disguise rescued a Jewish girl from her Moslem father's home in the PA-controlled city of Tul Karem, east of Netanya.
Accounts differ as to how precisely the rescue took place, but it was clearly planned thoroughly in advance. The story began several years ago when an Arab man from Tul Karem met a Jewish girl from Ashdod, and it was "love at first sight," according to the Arab. The Jewess has a different version, however; she says he first fooled her into believing he was Jewish - and neglected to mention that he was already married with children. In fact, when the two later married and moved to Tul Karem, the first wife and five children lived nearby, without her knowledge.
The Jewish woman said her husband forbade her to go outside and beat her, and also later beat her daughter, born five years ago.
The story is similar to that told by hundreds of women who marry Moslems and live in Arab villages in Judea and Samaria. See the five-part Arutz-7 series by Mayaan Jaffe of two years ago, including:
'I Was Totally Alone'
'The Verbal Abuse Was Worst of All'
When Israeli Women Marry Arab Men
'He Was Taking Over My Mind'
'I Was Silent and I Was Alone'
After a while, the woman went to visit her mother in Ashdod, taking her daughter with her. A few days later, she informed her Moslem husband that she was not returning. The man was willing to accept his second wife's departure, but not that of his daughter - and he traveled to Ashdod and snatched her back to Tul Karem. He later claimed that back in Tul Karem, she "flowered," and that she had complained of being beaten by her grandmother "and not being allowed to stay up past 8 PM."
The mother then called Yad L'Achim, an organization that actively combats Christian missionaries and helps Jewish women suffering in Moslem villages. One account says that the religious men came into the town dressed as Arabs and asked directions for the man's house, while others say they were dressed as IDF soldiers and arrived under the guise of a terrorist-arresting operation. In any event, they entered the house, took the man and the 5-year-old girl, sped out of town, and immediately afterwards, released the father.
Meanwhile, another car was bringing the mother and grandmother to meet them. A Yad L'Achim operative who took part in the rescue was quoted in the Maariv newspaper as describing the emotional reunion: "The little girl had been sitting curled up in the car, then she got out, barefoot and with pajamas, and when she saw her mother, they embraced and fell together on the road, together with the grandmother."
The reunited mother and daughter are now in an undisclosed location, planning the legal battle to allow them to stay together. The father, for his part, has filed a complaint with the police of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Yad L'Achim (lit., Hand to Brothers) reports that it has saved "hundreds of Jewish women" in this manner in the course of the past year. Chairman Rabbi Shalom Dov Lifshitz said, "Hundreds of Jewish children and youths are rolling about in Arab villages, not knowing a thing about their Jewishness."
In the Jewish year 5765, which ended last Rosh HaShanah, the organization rescued 58 such children and 34 women in 47 rescues. The story that generally repeats itself is that the women regret having married Arabs, but their husbands refuse to allow them to return to their original homes.
"The children we saved would never have cried out 'Shma Yisrael,' would not have known they were Jewish, and certainly would have had no way of growing up as Jews," Yad L'Achim sources say.
A spokeswoman for the group said that the rescue was a last-resort mission, "after we turned to all the relevant authorities and were not answered, and after we saw that there was a definite threat upon the girl and others." She noted that two Arab women had recently turned to the group for help as well, "and we helped them happily."
Yad L'Achim also says it brought about the closure of 27 missionary centers in the past year, as well as 18 the year before.
One of the issues the group is currently dealing with involves the revelation that a missionary cult is running a nursery in a municipally-owned building in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem. Yad L'Achim reports that it recently discovered that for the past three years, an educational association has been illegally subletting the building to a missionary organization, which in turns operates a nursery there, "spreading its racist, anti-Semitic teachings, with missionary objectives, without the knowledge of the parents and children."
City Councilmen Rabbis Yosef Deitsch and Yaakov Shnor have asked Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupoliansky to immediately cancel the lease.
The two discovered the missionary activity when they were looking for better quarters for two Chabad nurseries, which are currently serving 90 children in a nearby bomb shelter in very crowded conditions.
Arutz Sheva
09.30.2006
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Friday, September 29, 2006
Bush's Jerusalem Retreat
Despite the war and contrary to previous reports that plans had been put on hold, the prime minister's office is set to allocate some NIS 20 million to complete the construction of its new offices comprising the prime minister's official residence.
On completion of the building, Israel will join the list of countries that maintains official homes for entertaining state officials, as is customary in the US, Japan, France and numerous other countries.
Israel currently hosts its high profile guests at ordinary hotels in Jerusalem. This created several problems for Jerusalemites who often got caught up in long traffic jams when such VIP's, including the prime minister himself were required to drive through the streets of the capital.
The lack of an official state residence also incurred high costs in security. Moreover, many of the official events were conducted out in the open in bad weather conditions. Hosting VIP's in a closed and guarded complex will solve the problem for Jerusalemites and state visitors alike.
According to Raanan Dinur, the Director General at the Prime Minister’s office, the building will be completed within four years after being approved by the planning committee.
Functional and Ceremonial
The new building is set to be constructed on the National Boulevard in Jerusalem where many of the new government offices are located.
The new prime minister's office was designed by architect Ram Carmi, the recipient of the Israel Prize for architecture. Sources at the prime minister's office say the building will be modest but not ascetic. It will be both functional and ceremonial.
The building is set to comprise the prime minister's office, recreation rooms for ministers, a regal ceremonial hall, an extensive reception area, large lobby, a banqueting hall, a press hall, communication center, cafeteria, fitness room, a kitchen on each floor and underground parking for hundreds of vehicles.
The new building will cover an area of thousands of square meters in the form of a round egg with large glass triangles protruding from it.
Y Net News
09.29.2006
On completion of the building, Israel will join the list of countries that maintains official homes for entertaining state officials, as is customary in the US, Japan, France and numerous other countries.
Israel currently hosts its high profile guests at ordinary hotels in Jerusalem. This created several problems for Jerusalemites who often got caught up in long traffic jams when such VIP's, including the prime minister himself were required to drive through the streets of the capital.
The lack of an official state residence also incurred high costs in security. Moreover, many of the official events were conducted out in the open in bad weather conditions. Hosting VIP's in a closed and guarded complex will solve the problem for Jerusalemites and state visitors alike.
According to Raanan Dinur, the Director General at the Prime Minister’s office, the building will be completed within four years after being approved by the planning committee.
Functional and Ceremonial
The new building is set to be constructed on the National Boulevard in Jerusalem where many of the new government offices are located.
The new prime minister's office was designed by architect Ram Carmi, the recipient of the Israel Prize for architecture. Sources at the prime minister's office say the building will be modest but not ascetic. It will be both functional and ceremonial.
The building is set to comprise the prime minister's office, recreation rooms for ministers, a regal ceremonial hall, an extensive reception area, large lobby, a banqueting hall, a press hall, communication center, cafeteria, fitness room, a kitchen on each floor and underground parking for hundreds of vehicles.
The new building will cover an area of thousands of square meters in the form of a round egg with large glass triangles protruding from it.
Y Net News
09.29.2006
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Pentagon: Suicide Bombers Follow Quran
With suicide bombings spreading from Iraq to Afghanistan, the Pentagon has tasked intelligence analysts to pinpoint what's driving Muslim after Muslim to do the unthinkable.
Their preliminary finding is politically explosive: it's their "holy book" the Quran after all, according to intelligence briefings obtained by WND.
In public, the U.S. government has made an effort to avoid linking the terrorist threat to Islam and the Quran while dismissing suicide terrorists as crazed heretics who pervert Islamic teachings.
"The terrorists distort the idea of jihad into a call for violence and murder," the White House maintains in its recently released "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism" report.
But internal Pentagon briefings show intelligence analysts have reached a wholly different conclusion after studying Islamic scripture and the backgrounds of suicide terrorists. They've found that most Muslim suicide bombers are in fact students of the Quran who are motivated by its violent commands – making them, as strange as it sounds to the West, "rational actors" on the Islamic stage.
In Islam, it is not how one lives one's life that guarantees spiritual salvation, but how one dies, according to the briefings. There are great advantages to becoming a martyr. Dying while fighting the infidels in the cause of Allah reserves a special place and honor in Paradise. And it earns special favor with Allah.
"Suicide in defense of Islam is permitted, and the Islamic suicide bomber is, in the main, a rational actor," concludes a recent Pentagon briefing paper titled, "Motivations of Muslim Suicide Bombers."
Suicide for Allah a 'win-win'
"His actions provide a win-win scenario for himself, his family, his faith and his God," the document explains. "The bomber secures salvation and the pleasures of Paradise. He earns a degree of financial security and a place for his family in Paradise. He defends his faith and takes his place in a long line of martyrs to be memorialized as a valorous fighter.
"And finally, because of the manner of his death, he is assured that he will find favor with Allah," the briefing adds. "Against these considerations, the selfless sacrifice by the individual Muslim to destroy Islam's enemies becomes a suitable, feasible and acceptable course of action."
The briefing – produced by a little-known Pentagon intelligence unit called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA – cites a number of passages from the Quran dealing with jihad, or "holy" warfare, martyrdom and Paradise, where "beautiful mansions" and "maidens" await martyr heroes. In preparation for attacks, suicide terrorists typically recite passages from six surahs, or chapters, of the Quran: Baqura (Surah 2), Al Imran (3), Anfal (8), Tawba (9), Rahman (55) and Asr (103).
CIFA staffs hundreds of investigators and analysts to help coordinate Pentagon security efforts at U.S. military installations at home and abroad.
The Pentagon unit is especially concerned about a new wave of suicide bombings hitting Afghanistan.
Suicide bombings have killed more than 200 people in Afghanistan this year, up from single digits two years ago. On Tuesday, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest and killed 18 outside an Afghan government compound. Last week, a suicide bomber riding a bike killed at least four NATO soldiers. And earlier this month, a suicide car bomber rammed into a U.S. military convoy near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, killing 16 people, including two American soldiers.
500 suicide bombers in reserve
The U.S. command in Afghanistan now warns that a suicide bombing cell is operating inside the Afghan capital. Meanwhile, the Taliban's top military commander told ABC News he has 500 suicide bombers at his disposal.
"We have so many of them that it is difficult to accommodate and arm and equip them," Mullah Dadullah Akhund said. "Some of them have been waiting for a year or more for their turn to be sent to the battlefield."
The emergence of a suicide cell in Kabul troubles military analysts because suicide attacks are the most effective weapon Muslim terrorists can use against the West. The Rand Corp. predicts they'll pose a serious and constant threat to the U.S. for years to come.
The U.S. intelligence community is growing increasingly worried, as well.
"Most jihadist groups will use suicide attacks focused primarily on soft targets to implement asymmetric warfare strategy," warns the just-declassified executive summary of the National Intelligence Estimate on the global terror threat. "Fighters with experience in Iraq are a potential source of leadership for jihadists pursuing these tactics."
Many scholars and media pundits, however, insist Muslim suicide bombers are not driven by religion.
"Beneath the religious rhetoric with which [such terror] is perpetrated, it occurs largely in the service of secular aims," claims Professor Robert A. Pape of the University of Chicago. "Suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation rather than a product of Islamic fundamentalism."
He says U.S. foreign policy is more a factor than faith.
"Though it speaks of Americans as infidels, al-Qaida is less concerned with converting us to Islam than removing us from Arab and Muslim lands," Pape said.
But what about the recent video by Adam Gadahn, the American al-Qaida, warning fellow Americans to convert to Islam before al-Qaida attacks again?
"He never mentions virgins or the benefits Islamic martyrs receive in Heaven," Pape asserted.
In fact, Gadahn notes 36 minutes into his speech that Allah reserves the highest rewards – "honors and delights" – for martyrs in Paradise.
"[He] promised the martyr in his path the reward over and above the reward of the believer," Gadahn said. "He has promised them honors and delights too numerous to go into here."
The 9/11 hijackers and the London bombers made martyrdom videos. In their last testaments, they recite the Quran while talking of their "love of death" and "sacrificing life for Allah." Seven martyrdom videotapes also were recovered by British authorities in the foiled transatlantic sky terror plot.
Before the 9/11 attacks, the hijackers shaved and doused themselves with flower water in preparation for their weddings with the beautiful virgins in Paradise. "Know that the women of Paradise are waiting, calling out 'Come hither, friend of Allah,'" according to a four-page letter circulated among them titled "THE LAST NIGHT." "They have dressed in their most beautiful clothing."
But are the virgins scriptural or apocryphal? French documentarian Pierre Rehov, who interviewed the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers in an attempt to find out why they do it, says it's not a myth or fantasy of heretics.
He says there's no doubt the Quran "promises virgins" to Muslim men who die while fighting infidels in jihad, and it's a key motivating factor behind suicide terrorism.
"It's obviously connected to religion," said Rehov, who features his interviews with Muslims in a recently released film, "Suicide Killers." "They really believe they are going to get the virgins."
He says would-be Muslim suicide bombers he's interviewed have shown him passages in the Quran "in which it's absolutely written that they're going to get the girls in the afterlife."
Muslim clerics do not disavow the virgins-for-martyrs reward as a perverted interpretation of the Quran.
And even Muslim leaders in the West condone suicide bombings. British scholar Azzam Tamimi recently told 8,000 Muslims in Manchester, England, that dying while fighting "George Bush and Tony Blair" is "just" and "the greatest act of martyrdom." Earlier, he said it's "the straight way to pleasing Allah."
And the founder of an allegedly mainstream Muslim group in Washington – the Council on American-Islamic Relations – also has given his blessing to suicide bombings.
Addressing a youth session at the 1999 Islamic Association for Palestine's annual convention in Chicago, CAIR founder Omar Ahmad praised suicide bombers who "kill themselves for Islam," according to a transcript provided by terror expert Steve Emerson's Investigative Project.
"Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam, that is not suicide," Ahmad asserted. "They kill themselves for Islam."
Osama bin Laden has encouraged "Muslims brothers" to defeat the U.S. and U.K. with suicide attacks.
"I tell you to act upon the orders of Allah," he said in 2003, "be united against Bush and Blair and defeat them through suicide attacks so that you may be successful before Allah."
WND
o9,26.2006
Their preliminary finding is politically explosive: it's their "holy book" the Quran after all, according to intelligence briefings obtained by WND.
In public, the U.S. government has made an effort to avoid linking the terrorist threat to Islam and the Quran while dismissing suicide terrorists as crazed heretics who pervert Islamic teachings.
"The terrorists distort the idea of jihad into a call for violence and murder," the White House maintains in its recently released "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism" report.
But internal Pentagon briefings show intelligence analysts have reached a wholly different conclusion after studying Islamic scripture and the backgrounds of suicide terrorists. They've found that most Muslim suicide bombers are in fact students of the Quran who are motivated by its violent commands – making them, as strange as it sounds to the West, "rational actors" on the Islamic stage.
In Islam, it is not how one lives one's life that guarantees spiritual salvation, but how one dies, according to the briefings. There are great advantages to becoming a martyr. Dying while fighting the infidels in the cause of Allah reserves a special place and honor in Paradise. And it earns special favor with Allah.
"Suicide in defense of Islam is permitted, and the Islamic suicide bomber is, in the main, a rational actor," concludes a recent Pentagon briefing paper titled, "Motivations of Muslim Suicide Bombers."
Suicide for Allah a 'win-win'
"His actions provide a win-win scenario for himself, his family, his faith and his God," the document explains. "The bomber secures salvation and the pleasures of Paradise. He earns a degree of financial security and a place for his family in Paradise. He defends his faith and takes his place in a long line of martyrs to be memorialized as a valorous fighter.
"And finally, because of the manner of his death, he is assured that he will find favor with Allah," the briefing adds. "Against these considerations, the selfless sacrifice by the individual Muslim to destroy Islam's enemies becomes a suitable, feasible and acceptable course of action."
The briefing – produced by a little-known Pentagon intelligence unit called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA – cites a number of passages from the Quran dealing with jihad, or "holy" warfare, martyrdom and Paradise, where "beautiful mansions" and "maidens" await martyr heroes. In preparation for attacks, suicide terrorists typically recite passages from six surahs, or chapters, of the Quran: Baqura (Surah 2), Al Imran (3), Anfal (8), Tawba (9), Rahman (55) and Asr (103).
CIFA staffs hundreds of investigators and analysts to help coordinate Pentagon security efforts at U.S. military installations at home and abroad.
The Pentagon unit is especially concerned about a new wave of suicide bombings hitting Afghanistan.
Suicide bombings have killed more than 200 people in Afghanistan this year, up from single digits two years ago. On Tuesday, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest and killed 18 outside an Afghan government compound. Last week, a suicide bomber riding a bike killed at least four NATO soldiers. And earlier this month, a suicide car bomber rammed into a U.S. military convoy near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, killing 16 people, including two American soldiers.
500 suicide bombers in reserve
The U.S. command in Afghanistan now warns that a suicide bombing cell is operating inside the Afghan capital. Meanwhile, the Taliban's top military commander told ABC News he has 500 suicide bombers at his disposal.
"We have so many of them that it is difficult to accommodate and arm and equip them," Mullah Dadullah Akhund said. "Some of them have been waiting for a year or more for their turn to be sent to the battlefield."
The emergence of a suicide cell in Kabul troubles military analysts because suicide attacks are the most effective weapon Muslim terrorists can use against the West. The Rand Corp. predicts they'll pose a serious and constant threat to the U.S. for years to come.
The U.S. intelligence community is growing increasingly worried, as well.
"Most jihadist groups will use suicide attacks focused primarily on soft targets to implement asymmetric warfare strategy," warns the just-declassified executive summary of the National Intelligence Estimate on the global terror threat. "Fighters with experience in Iraq are a potential source of leadership for jihadists pursuing these tactics."
Many scholars and media pundits, however, insist Muslim suicide bombers are not driven by religion.
"Beneath the religious rhetoric with which [such terror] is perpetrated, it occurs largely in the service of secular aims," claims Professor Robert A. Pape of the University of Chicago. "Suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation rather than a product of Islamic fundamentalism."
He says U.S. foreign policy is more a factor than faith.
"Though it speaks of Americans as infidels, al-Qaida is less concerned with converting us to Islam than removing us from Arab and Muslim lands," Pape said.
But what about the recent video by Adam Gadahn, the American al-Qaida, warning fellow Americans to convert to Islam before al-Qaida attacks again?
"He never mentions virgins or the benefits Islamic martyrs receive in Heaven," Pape asserted.
In fact, Gadahn notes 36 minutes into his speech that Allah reserves the highest rewards – "honors and delights" – for martyrs in Paradise.
"[He] promised the martyr in his path the reward over and above the reward of the believer," Gadahn said. "He has promised them honors and delights too numerous to go into here."
The 9/11 hijackers and the London bombers made martyrdom videos. In their last testaments, they recite the Quran while talking of their "love of death" and "sacrificing life for Allah." Seven martyrdom videotapes also were recovered by British authorities in the foiled transatlantic sky terror plot.
Before the 9/11 attacks, the hijackers shaved and doused themselves with flower water in preparation for their weddings with the beautiful virgins in Paradise. "Know that the women of Paradise are waiting, calling out 'Come hither, friend of Allah,'" according to a four-page letter circulated among them titled "THE LAST NIGHT." "They have dressed in their most beautiful clothing."
But are the virgins scriptural or apocryphal? French documentarian Pierre Rehov, who interviewed the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers in an attempt to find out why they do it, says it's not a myth or fantasy of heretics.
He says there's no doubt the Quran "promises virgins" to Muslim men who die while fighting infidels in jihad, and it's a key motivating factor behind suicide terrorism.
"It's obviously connected to religion," said Rehov, who features his interviews with Muslims in a recently released film, "Suicide Killers." "They really believe they are going to get the virgins."
He says would-be Muslim suicide bombers he's interviewed have shown him passages in the Quran "in which it's absolutely written that they're going to get the girls in the afterlife."
Muslim clerics do not disavow the virgins-for-martyrs reward as a perverted interpretation of the Quran.
And even Muslim leaders in the West condone suicide bombings. British scholar Azzam Tamimi recently told 8,000 Muslims in Manchester, England, that dying while fighting "George Bush and Tony Blair" is "just" and "the greatest act of martyrdom." Earlier, he said it's "the straight way to pleasing Allah."
And the founder of an allegedly mainstream Muslim group in Washington – the Council on American-Islamic Relations – also has given his blessing to suicide bombings.
Addressing a youth session at the 1999 Islamic Association for Palestine's annual convention in Chicago, CAIR founder Omar Ahmad praised suicide bombers who "kill themselves for Islam," according to a transcript provided by terror expert Steve Emerson's Investigative Project.
"Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam, that is not suicide," Ahmad asserted. "They kill themselves for Islam."
Osama bin Laden has encouraged "Muslims brothers" to defeat the U.S. and U.K. with suicide attacks.
"I tell you to act upon the orders of Allah," he said in 2003, "be united against Bush and Blair and defeat them through suicide attacks so that you may be successful before Allah."
WND
o9,26.2006
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
UN Force In Lebanon-Defined By What It Cannot Do
The United Nations force created to police southern Lebanon faces not only a threatening al Qaeda presence cheek by jowl, but endless handicaps in performing its mandated functions.
The New York Times correspondent reports: One month after a UN Security Council resolution ended a 34-day war… the international force members say “they cannot set up checkpoints, search cars, homes or businesses or detain suspects. If they see a truck transporting missiles, for example (in violation of the UN arms embargo), they cannot stop it… because under their interpretation of the Security Council resolution (1701) that deployed them, they must first be authorized to take such action by the Lebanese army.”
And whereas the Security Council allocated 15,000 troops to expanded UNIFIL, only 5,000 are deployed.
According to the NYT, the UN commanders repeat as a mantra that their job is to respect Lebanese sovereignty by supporting the Lebanese army. “They will only do what the Lebanese authorities ask.”
DEBKAfile adds: More than 40% of the Lebanese army consists of Shiites. Their loyalty goes first to Hizballah or their Shiite commanders rather than the Lebanese government.
Israeli officials and commanders have their own mantra which is that there is no Hizballah activity on the ground. The last Israeli forces can therefore pull out of South Lebanon by the end of the month. DEBKAfile notes that the Olmert government continues to cover up the failure of its war objectives by glossing over its aftermath. The truth is that Hizballah activities are intense but do not figure in the reports of UNIFIL’s European contingents, which have their own agenda.
This agenda has whittled down most elements of the mission assigned the UN force by Resolution 1701, which was approved in the first place to prevent Hizballah from continuing its attacks on Israel and destabilizing the area.
As for the demand to disarm Hizballah, the paper quotes local Shiites as making it clear “they will fight anybody who tries to take Hizballah’s weapons away. For the forces to remain welcome they must demonstrate they are there to protect the Lebanese from Israel – not to police the Lebanese on behalf of Israel.”
DEBKAfile adds: Hizballah would not need to fight the international force. Al Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman Zawahiri stated in his last videotape this month that UNIFIL in Lebanon is a target for terrorist attack. Hizballah’s hands can therefore stay clean. US Intelligence Director John Negroponte reported last week that Qaeda’s expansion into Lebanon, exploiting the conflict there, is being taken seriously. The chasm between the Sunni Muslim al Qaeda and Lebanon’s Shiite Hizballah is no bar to collaboration.
However, from the Israeli side of the border, yellow-clad, Hizballah flag-waving demonstrators are photographed day by day, throwing rocks at Israeli vehicles and moving into the former locations of the destroyed Hizballah positions. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that just a month after the ceasefire went into effect, Hizballah’s arsenals are filling up again as trucks head south from central and northern Lebanon unimpeded by Israeli or international troops.
Israel has still not appointed a new head of the IDF’s Northern command to replace the war commander Maj.-Gen Udi Adam who stepped down last week.
As for the international force, its “robust” policing operations have more or less been relegated to the archives of the UN Security Council.
Debka
09.26.2006
The New York Times correspondent reports: One month after a UN Security Council resolution ended a 34-day war… the international force members say “they cannot set up checkpoints, search cars, homes or businesses or detain suspects. If they see a truck transporting missiles, for example (in violation of the UN arms embargo), they cannot stop it… because under their interpretation of the Security Council resolution (1701) that deployed them, they must first be authorized to take such action by the Lebanese army.”
And whereas the Security Council allocated 15,000 troops to expanded UNIFIL, only 5,000 are deployed.
According to the NYT, the UN commanders repeat as a mantra that their job is to respect Lebanese sovereignty by supporting the Lebanese army. “They will only do what the Lebanese authorities ask.”
DEBKAfile adds: More than 40% of the Lebanese army consists of Shiites. Their loyalty goes first to Hizballah or their Shiite commanders rather than the Lebanese government.
Israeli officials and commanders have their own mantra which is that there is no Hizballah activity on the ground. The last Israeli forces can therefore pull out of South Lebanon by the end of the month. DEBKAfile notes that the Olmert government continues to cover up the failure of its war objectives by glossing over its aftermath. The truth is that Hizballah activities are intense but do not figure in the reports of UNIFIL’s European contingents, which have their own agenda.
This agenda has whittled down most elements of the mission assigned the UN force by Resolution 1701, which was approved in the first place to prevent Hizballah from continuing its attacks on Israel and destabilizing the area.
As for the demand to disarm Hizballah, the paper quotes local Shiites as making it clear “they will fight anybody who tries to take Hizballah’s weapons away. For the forces to remain welcome they must demonstrate they are there to protect the Lebanese from Israel – not to police the Lebanese on behalf of Israel.”
DEBKAfile adds: Hizballah would not need to fight the international force. Al Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman Zawahiri stated in his last videotape this month that UNIFIL in Lebanon is a target for terrorist attack. Hizballah’s hands can therefore stay clean. US Intelligence Director John Negroponte reported last week that Qaeda’s expansion into Lebanon, exploiting the conflict there, is being taken seriously. The chasm between the Sunni Muslim al Qaeda and Lebanon’s Shiite Hizballah is no bar to collaboration.
However, from the Israeli side of the border, yellow-clad, Hizballah flag-waving demonstrators are photographed day by day, throwing rocks at Israeli vehicles and moving into the former locations of the destroyed Hizballah positions. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that just a month after the ceasefire went into effect, Hizballah’s arsenals are filling up again as trucks head south from central and northern Lebanon unimpeded by Israeli or international troops.
Israel has still not appointed a new head of the IDF’s Northern command to replace the war commander Maj.-Gen Udi Adam who stepped down last week.
As for the international force, its “robust” policing operations have more or less been relegated to the archives of the UN Security Council.
Debka
09.26.2006
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Israeli Company Develops Bug-Resistant Bananas
If you eat five bananas a week, there's a good chance that one of them has its genetic origins in Israel.
Driving north of Nahariya towards the Lebanese border, you pass fields and fields of banana crops at nearby Achziv as well as on Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra. It's at the latter kibbutz where biotech company Rahan Meristem (1998) LTD, a world leader in banana biotechnology, has its offices and laboratories.
"We're the largest producer of banana tissue cultured plants in the world - producing about 10 million a year. They're sold all around the world. We calculated that approximately 20% of the bananas that are marketed throughout the western world originated or were selected at Rahan," said Dr. Eli Khayat, head of research and development at Rahan and a professor of plant biology at Hebrew University and the Technion.
"Most of our research is on bananas - trying to improve the quality of the crop - using molecular genetics to breed bananas that ripen slower and have a longer shelf life," he told ISRAEL21c. "These are parameters which are important to both the grower and the consumer. Our goal is to breed plants, and given that bananas are seedless, the only means to produce elite clones is by genetic engineering."
With a total production of approximately 60 million tons per year, banana and plantains (bananas which are grown for cooking) have become a major crop worldwide, exported from tropical countries to almost every part of the globe. But as a result of its natural sterility, most banana varieties have yet to be genetically improved via biotechnological tools.
Now in a new breakthrough development with far-reaching implications, Khayat and his team have successfully completed a field trial that validates its latest accomplishment - the complete resistance of banana plants to a wide range of pathogenic nematodes - tiny microscopic worms that damage plants from their root.
Nematodes are considered one of the most destructive pathogens attacking bananas in all zones of production. Vegetative propagation, using infested corms or suckers, has disseminated this pest throughout the world. Yet, most effective nematicides have been banned in large parts of the world because of their polluting effect on the environment. As a result, nematode resistance is considered to be a highly attractive attribute that is estimated to reduce growers' expenses by hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
According to Khayat, the accomplishment has taken six years of research and testing.
"The technology involved was developed jointly by Rahan, Bar Ilan University and Hazera, an Israeli seed company. The result is transgenic bananas, bananas that have been genetically modified. They are completely resistant to nematodes, by use of a special technology called RNAi," he told ISRAEL21c.
"We recently conducted field trials, growing plants in an area heavily infested with nematodes, and the plants showed complete resistance. They weren't affected at all. The nematodes couldn't reproduce on the plants."
Founded in 1974 by members of the kibbutz, Rahan Meristem was the first operating commercial tissue culture laboratory in Israel. It was established as an extension of an existing well-recognized fruit trees nursery in Israel.
Initially, Rahan's workers developed new procedures for large scale, in vitro, clonal propagation of over 200 plant genera including ornamental, industrial, fruit and vegetable crops.
By the mid 1980s the company focused on a smaller variety of plants, and in vitro propagated banana plants became the leading product. Combined with the high level of pre-existing expertise of banana agrotechnology on Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra, Rahan became a center of research and consultation for the banana industry throughout the world.
A formal R&D department was established in 1991 in order to provide technical support to the different branches of the company and develop new products and technologies, as well as other technical services. Khayat joined the company in 1992 when he returned to Israel from a post as associate professor at Rutgers.
When Khayat talks about molecular genetics and how it relates to bananas, it sounds like the Israeli kibbutz of yesterday - with oranges, dancing, and tractors, has turned into a futuristic science fiction mystery.
"We're producing and breeding banana plantlets from tissue culture. They're banana clones. Bananas are seedless so the only way to improve them is by selection, a process we work on at our premises on the kibbutz. The selected clones are propagated by means of tissue culture. You can amplify a single clone to as many as you want," Khayat explained.
When the topic is cloning and genetic engineering, Khayat knows that he's treading in controversial territory, with large movements around the world opposed to genetically engineered food. But he provides thoughtful explanations as to why he thinks Rahan is on the right path.
"I think the opposition derives from a general view about genetically engineered plants as being unknown and a mystery. It's the same as the feelings about vaccines at the beginning of the 20th century - the view that it will cause something worse that what it's protecting against," he said.
"Genetic engineering is much safer than insecticides to both the environment and to humans, but politically, it's a problem with environmental groups. For example, in general the fields where bananas are grown are treated with nematicides to avoid infestation by nematodes. The volume of insecticide could not only kill humans, but even elephants. They are very nasty chemicals, and the damage to the environment as a result is very heavy."
"With transgenic plants, especially bananas due to the fact that they can't cross-fertilize and don't have seeds, there's no dissipation of the genetic material anyway - it's contained within the plant. So there's no danger to humans or to the environment. The plants can grow in areas that weren't treated with insecticides."
Khayat pointed out that in Costa Rica, where much of the population works in the banana industry, there was a large occurrence of male sterility due to nematicides. He added that over time, many countries have accepted genetically engineered food products as a fact on the ground.
"In the US, it's a standard practice. In Europe, by and large, there is still objection, but it's slowly breaking down. Now in Spain and Germany, the import of transgenic seeds is allowed, but it's still case by case."
Rahan's nematode-resistant technology must now pass through a regulatory process in the US which is very expensive, and Khayat acknowledges that Rahan, which employs 130, will not be able to carry this out alone.
As a result, the company is currently looking for strategic partners in the US who will take over the process. The company is also looking for partners in the banana industry, such as Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte, who might be interested in developing Rahan's technology. Khayat admits that negotiations with one of these two banana giants is now underway.
Israel 21st Century
09.25.2006
Driving north of Nahariya towards the Lebanese border, you pass fields and fields of banana crops at nearby Achziv as well as on Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra. It's at the latter kibbutz where biotech company Rahan Meristem (1998) LTD, a world leader in banana biotechnology, has its offices and laboratories.
"We're the largest producer of banana tissue cultured plants in the world - producing about 10 million a year. They're sold all around the world. We calculated that approximately 20% of the bananas that are marketed throughout the western world originated or were selected at Rahan," said Dr. Eli Khayat, head of research and development at Rahan and a professor of plant biology at Hebrew University and the Technion.
"Most of our research is on bananas - trying to improve the quality of the crop - using molecular genetics to breed bananas that ripen slower and have a longer shelf life," he told ISRAEL21c. "These are parameters which are important to both the grower and the consumer. Our goal is to breed plants, and given that bananas are seedless, the only means to produce elite clones is by genetic engineering."
With a total production of approximately 60 million tons per year, banana and plantains (bananas which are grown for cooking) have become a major crop worldwide, exported from tropical countries to almost every part of the globe. But as a result of its natural sterility, most banana varieties have yet to be genetically improved via biotechnological tools.
Now in a new breakthrough development with far-reaching implications, Khayat and his team have successfully completed a field trial that validates its latest accomplishment - the complete resistance of banana plants to a wide range of pathogenic nematodes - tiny microscopic worms that damage plants from their root.
Nematodes are considered one of the most destructive pathogens attacking bananas in all zones of production. Vegetative propagation, using infested corms or suckers, has disseminated this pest throughout the world. Yet, most effective nematicides have been banned in large parts of the world because of their polluting effect on the environment. As a result, nematode resistance is considered to be a highly attractive attribute that is estimated to reduce growers' expenses by hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
According to Khayat, the accomplishment has taken six years of research and testing.
"The technology involved was developed jointly by Rahan, Bar Ilan University and Hazera, an Israeli seed company. The result is transgenic bananas, bananas that have been genetically modified. They are completely resistant to nematodes, by use of a special technology called RNAi," he told ISRAEL21c.
"We recently conducted field trials, growing plants in an area heavily infested with nematodes, and the plants showed complete resistance. They weren't affected at all. The nematodes couldn't reproduce on the plants."
Founded in 1974 by members of the kibbutz, Rahan Meristem was the first operating commercial tissue culture laboratory in Israel. It was established as an extension of an existing well-recognized fruit trees nursery in Israel.
Initially, Rahan's workers developed new procedures for large scale, in vitro, clonal propagation of over 200 plant genera including ornamental, industrial, fruit and vegetable crops.
By the mid 1980s the company focused on a smaller variety of plants, and in vitro propagated banana plants became the leading product. Combined with the high level of pre-existing expertise of banana agrotechnology on Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra, Rahan became a center of research and consultation for the banana industry throughout the world.
A formal R&D department was established in 1991 in order to provide technical support to the different branches of the company and develop new products and technologies, as well as other technical services. Khayat joined the company in 1992 when he returned to Israel from a post as associate professor at Rutgers.
When Khayat talks about molecular genetics and how it relates to bananas, it sounds like the Israeli kibbutz of yesterday - with oranges, dancing, and tractors, has turned into a futuristic science fiction mystery.
"We're producing and breeding banana plantlets from tissue culture. They're banana clones. Bananas are seedless so the only way to improve them is by selection, a process we work on at our premises on the kibbutz. The selected clones are propagated by means of tissue culture. You can amplify a single clone to as many as you want," Khayat explained.
When the topic is cloning and genetic engineering, Khayat knows that he's treading in controversial territory, with large movements around the world opposed to genetically engineered food. But he provides thoughtful explanations as to why he thinks Rahan is on the right path.
"I think the opposition derives from a general view about genetically engineered plants as being unknown and a mystery. It's the same as the feelings about vaccines at the beginning of the 20th century - the view that it will cause something worse that what it's protecting against," he said.
"Genetic engineering is much safer than insecticides to both the environment and to humans, but politically, it's a problem with environmental groups. For example, in general the fields where bananas are grown are treated with nematicides to avoid infestation by nematodes. The volume of insecticide could not only kill humans, but even elephants. They are very nasty chemicals, and the damage to the environment as a result is very heavy."
"With transgenic plants, especially bananas due to the fact that they can't cross-fertilize and don't have seeds, there's no dissipation of the genetic material anyway - it's contained within the plant. So there's no danger to humans or to the environment. The plants can grow in areas that weren't treated with insecticides."
Khayat pointed out that in Costa Rica, where much of the population works in the banana industry, there was a large occurrence of male sterility due to nematicides. He added that over time, many countries have accepted genetically engineered food products as a fact on the ground.
"In the US, it's a standard practice. In Europe, by and large, there is still objection, but it's slowly breaking down. Now in Spain and Germany, the import of transgenic seeds is allowed, but it's still case by case."
Rahan's nematode-resistant technology must now pass through a regulatory process in the US which is very expensive, and Khayat acknowledges that Rahan, which employs 130, will not be able to carry this out alone.
As a result, the company is currently looking for strategic partners in the US who will take over the process. The company is also looking for partners in the banana industry, such as Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte, who might be interested in developing Rahan's technology. Khayat admits that negotiations with one of these two banana giants is now underway.
Israel 21st Century
09.25.2006
Monday, September 25, 2006
Al-Qaida Could Use Non-Arabs To Attack Israel
Shin Bet and other intelligence units have been put on special alert after Ayman Al-Zawahiri, a Hezb'allah strongman and Osama Bin Laden's deputy, said Israel was on Al-Qaida's list of upcoming targets. Intelligence sources said Al-Qaida could try to execute a surprise attack using non-Arabs.
Zawahiri is believed to be taking over the leadership of Al-Qaida, due to Bin Laden's illness. Zawahiri and Bin Laden have apparently disagreed over whether Al-Qaida's next target should be in a Western state or in the Middle East. Bin Laden wanted to act in the United States and Europe while Zawahiri, who is of Egyptian origin, wished to achieve goals in the Middle East; namely, Israel and the Arab states that cooperate with it.
Zawahiri pushed to set up Al-Qaida cells in Sinai, taking advantage of the Bedouin economic plight to carry out terror attacks against Egyptian targets and Israeli tourists. He initiated terror acts in Jordan causing dozens of fatalities and was behind the idea to intercept an aircraft carrying Israeli tourists to East Africa and attack the hotel where Israelis were staying in 2002.
About two weeks ago, on the anniversary of September 11, Zawahiri warned in a video recording that Israel and the Gulf states could be Al-Qaida's next targets of attack. Such attacks would be aimed at destroying the Western economy. Israel increased its preparations for a preemptive strike following his warning.
Israel assumes that Al-Qaida will try to recruit non-Arabs to act against Israel, as it tried to enlist Africans for the attacks in East Africa. Israel knew of this activity, but had difficulty cooperating with the Americans to thwart it. However, Israel's cooperation with European intelligence brought about the arrest of Al-Qaida people in East Africa.
The most commonly cited surprise attack in Israel was the bombing of Mike's Place in Tel Aviv by two Britons of Pakistani origin who were sent by Al-Qaida.
The two, who smuggled explosives into Israel, moved freely between Israel and the territories with their British passports. About a month ago, British authorities exposed British-born Al-Qaida activists of Pakistani origin, who were planning to crash passenger airplanes over the ocean with liquid explosives.
Another possibility Al-Qaida is believed to be considering is infiltrating Israel via Lebanon.
Israel today faces two main fundamentalist groups - Sunni Al-Qaida and Shi'ite Hezb'allah.
Hezbollah is set on harming Israel, but it is hardly likely at this stage to allow Al-Qaida to act independently in Lebanon without supervision.
Haaretz
09.25.2006
Zawahiri is believed to be taking over the leadership of Al-Qaida, due to Bin Laden's illness. Zawahiri and Bin Laden have apparently disagreed over whether Al-Qaida's next target should be in a Western state or in the Middle East. Bin Laden wanted to act in the United States and Europe while Zawahiri, who is of Egyptian origin, wished to achieve goals in the Middle East; namely, Israel and the Arab states that cooperate with it.
Zawahiri pushed to set up Al-Qaida cells in Sinai, taking advantage of the Bedouin economic plight to carry out terror attacks against Egyptian targets and Israeli tourists. He initiated terror acts in Jordan causing dozens of fatalities and was behind the idea to intercept an aircraft carrying Israeli tourists to East Africa and attack the hotel where Israelis were staying in 2002.
About two weeks ago, on the anniversary of September 11, Zawahiri warned in a video recording that Israel and the Gulf states could be Al-Qaida's next targets of attack. Such attacks would be aimed at destroying the Western economy. Israel increased its preparations for a preemptive strike following his warning.
Israel assumes that Al-Qaida will try to recruit non-Arabs to act against Israel, as it tried to enlist Africans for the attacks in East Africa. Israel knew of this activity, but had difficulty cooperating with the Americans to thwart it. However, Israel's cooperation with European intelligence brought about the arrest of Al-Qaida people in East Africa.
The most commonly cited surprise attack in Israel was the bombing of Mike's Place in Tel Aviv by two Britons of Pakistani origin who were sent by Al-Qaida.
The two, who smuggled explosives into Israel, moved freely between Israel and the territories with their British passports. About a month ago, British authorities exposed British-born Al-Qaida activists of Pakistani origin, who were planning to crash passenger airplanes over the ocean with liquid explosives.
Another possibility Al-Qaida is believed to be considering is infiltrating Israel via Lebanon.
Israel today faces two main fundamentalist groups - Sunni Al-Qaida and Shi'ite Hezb'allah.
Hezbollah is set on harming Israel, but it is hardly likely at this stage to allow Al-Qaida to act independently in Lebanon without supervision.
Haaretz
09.25.2006
Sunday, September 24, 2006
The Religion of Peace
With all the fuss being made about the Pope's comments about Islam, it wouldn't hurt to take a look at Islam's fruits, rather than just its protests to the contrary.
The Pope recently quoted a 14th century emperor who criticized Islam for its practice of forced conversions. Islamic apologists deny Islam teaches anything of the kind.
It is on this basis that they have launched the current wave of violent protests against any suggestion that Islam is a violent religion.
Members of a Palestinian terrorist group kidnapped two Fox news journalists recently. The two were put before a video camera while in captivity and given a choice. They could be filmed converting to Islam. Or they could be filmed being beheaded on camera.
One of them described a big knife that was set just in front of them off camera. Both Fox reporters chose Option One and converted to Islam.
Centanni and his cameraman, Olaf Wigg, were filmed wearing Islamic robes. They read from scripts from which they announced they had become observant Muslims and asking Bush and Blair to do likewise.
"Islam is not just meant for some people. It is the true religion for all people at all times," said Mr Centanni. "I changed my name to Khaled. I have embraced Islam and say the word Allah."
It was only afterwards that Centanni admitted his conversion was not heartfelt. But neither, evidently was his denial.
He told Fox News in a post-release interview: “We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint. . .” but then he added, “"Don't get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn't know what was going on."
There is one thing that we've learned from the journalists' ordeal about what IS going on is revealing. The West has been trying to convince itself that Islam is just another religion, like Unitarians or Buddhists. Or Christians.
But Jesus didn't tell Christians to force people to come to Him at the point of a gun. Or under the threat of a sword.
Jesus promised that the power of conversion would come through His Holy Spirit.
Jesus told the Apostles, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. (Acts 1:8)
Compare that to Islam's version of the Great Commission: Said Mohammed to his apostles; “I was ordered to fight all men until they say, ‘There is no god but Allah.”
Jesus send His followers out to live according to His example, which He said would draw men to what they could clearly see to be the truth.
Mohammed told his followers to fight all men until they convert to Islam's version of the truth. Osama bin Laden quoted Islam's great commission during the post 9/11 Afghan campaign: “I was ordered to fight all men until they say, ‘There is no god but Allah.”
Part of the reason that we are in for a generational war is that America has not yet recognized the enemy. America still believes that Osama's Islam is a distortion of what is, at its heart, a religion of peace.
Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig saw the religion of peace in action. Mohammed himself gave the great commission to Islam to fight ALL men until they do what Centanni and Wiig did.
And until we see, as they did, the big knife laying off-camera, America will fight this war as if it were only against al-Qaeda.
And Osama will continue to franchise out his jihad without anybody knowing who the enemy is until it is too late. And this war will go on for a generation.
Or even longer.
By: Hal Lindsey
The Pope recently quoted a 14th century emperor who criticized Islam for its practice of forced conversions. Islamic apologists deny Islam teaches anything of the kind.
It is on this basis that they have launched the current wave of violent protests against any suggestion that Islam is a violent religion.
Members of a Palestinian terrorist group kidnapped two Fox news journalists recently. The two were put before a video camera while in captivity and given a choice. They could be filmed converting to Islam. Or they could be filmed being beheaded on camera.
One of them described a big knife that was set just in front of them off camera. Both Fox reporters chose Option One and converted to Islam.
Centanni and his cameraman, Olaf Wigg, were filmed wearing Islamic robes. They read from scripts from which they announced they had become observant Muslims and asking Bush and Blair to do likewise.
"Islam is not just meant for some people. It is the true religion for all people at all times," said Mr Centanni. "I changed my name to Khaled. I have embraced Islam and say the word Allah."
It was only afterwards that Centanni admitted his conversion was not heartfelt. But neither, evidently was his denial.
He told Fox News in a post-release interview: “We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint. . .” but then he added, “"Don't get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn't know what was going on."
There is one thing that we've learned from the journalists' ordeal about what IS going on is revealing. The West has been trying to convince itself that Islam is just another religion, like Unitarians or Buddhists. Or Christians.
But Jesus didn't tell Christians to force people to come to Him at the point of a gun. Or under the threat of a sword.
Jesus promised that the power of conversion would come through His Holy Spirit.
Jesus told the Apostles, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. (Acts 1:8)
Compare that to Islam's version of the Great Commission: Said Mohammed to his apostles; “I was ordered to fight all men until they say, ‘There is no god but Allah.”
Jesus send His followers out to live according to His example, which He said would draw men to what they could clearly see to be the truth.
Mohammed told his followers to fight all men until they convert to Islam's version of the truth. Osama bin Laden quoted Islam's great commission during the post 9/11 Afghan campaign: “I was ordered to fight all men until they say, ‘There is no god but Allah.”
Part of the reason that we are in for a generational war is that America has not yet recognized the enemy. America still believes that Osama's Islam is a distortion of what is, at its heart, a religion of peace.
Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig saw the religion of peace in action. Mohammed himself gave the great commission to Islam to fight ALL men until they do what Centanni and Wiig did.
And until we see, as they did, the big knife laying off-camera, America will fight this war as if it were only against al-Qaeda.
And Osama will continue to franchise out his jihad without anybody knowing who the enemy is until it is too late. And this war will go on for a generation.
Or even longer.
By: Hal Lindsey
Saturday, September 23, 2006
The Age of Irrationality
American thinker, Founding Father and celebrated deist Thomas Paine wrote a book late in the 18th century called "The Age of Reason." Paine's book was the American version of a movement taking place at about the same time in Europe that was dubbed, "the Age of Enlightenment."
What characterized this era of Western thinking was an examination of both religious belief and piety.
In Europe, prominent Enlightenment philosophers like Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and David Hume questioned and attacked the existing institutions of both Church and State.
To set the stage, Europe had been ravaged by religious wars; when peace in the political situation had been restored, after the Peace of Westphalia and the English Civil War, an intellectual upheaval overturned the accepted belief that mysticism and individual revelation are the primary sources of knowledge and wisdom.
It was during the 18th century's "Age of Reason" and 19th century's "Age of Enlightenment" the philosophies of liberalism and atheism were explored and codified, out of which grew the philsophy of modernism that dominated much of the thinking during the 20th century.
From this point on, thinkers and writers were held to be free to pursue the truth in whatever form, without the threat of sanction for violating established ideas.
With the end of the Second World War and the rise of post-modernity, these same features came to be regarded as liabilities - excessive specialization, failure to heed traditional wisdom or provide for unintended consequences.
By the end of the 20th century, the natural progression of these philosophies resulted in much of the Western world entering what many call the post-Christian era.
Now, in the 21st century, a new philosophy is taking over the West. For want of a better name, one might call it the 'post-rational' era.
The previously mentioned philosophies gave great credibility to reason and logic. As the 21st century opens, these bedrock principles of rational thought are being thrown out the window in favor of what can best be described as wishful thinking.
We wish that Islam is a religion of peace and love, and therefore, no preponderence of evidence to the contrary is enough to shake that dream.
We wish the United Nations was an effective tool of international diplomacy and peace, and therefore, the preponderance of evidence that it disinterested in the former and incapable of the latter will be entertained.
In America, we wish that our culture reflected the purest principles of Christianity, and therefore, no argument to the contrary is convincing.
Let's explore the three examples I just outlined in a bit more detail.
President Bush, together with the rest of the Western world's leadership, are adamant in their contention that Islam is a religion of peace and love that was hijacked by a minority of fundamentalist extremists.
They repeat that each time that the West comes under Islamic attack, as if by saying it, it will become true. This isn't rational thinking, this is wishful thinking.
Last week, the Pope quoted a 13th century emperor's assessment of Islam, and was immediately excoriated for 'claiming' that Islam is a violent religion. In the first, the Pope didn't make the claim. He quoted somebody else who made that claim. And rationally, since the claim was made 700 years ago, it was referring to Islam in the 13th century.
No matter. Modern Islam, enraged at the thought that a guy who lived 700 years ago thought Islam was a violent religion, responded by unleashing a violent series of world-wide demonstrations and actions against symbols of Christianity.
The rhetoric from the Islamic world turned reason and rationality on its head. The head of the Islamic Republic of Iran issued a statement saying that "anybody who calls Islam intolerant brings violence upon himself."
That statement is so irrational that it sounds like something from Saturday Night Live. "Don't call me violent or I will kill you."
In protest at being called violent, Islamists burned Christian churches. A 61 year old nun was gunned down to protest the concept of Islamic violence. In dozens of world-wide demonstrations, the Pope was burned in effigy. Islamic groups issued death threats against the Pope. Others threatened to storm the Vatican and kill everyone inside.
In response, the Pope apologized profusely, with his secretary issuing a statement saying that Benedict’s position on Islam was unquestionably in line with the Vatican’s traditional teaching that the Rome “esteems Muslims, who adore the only God.”
To say that the god of Islam that sponsored the global rioting is the same God that told His followers to 'turn the other cheek' is more than just heresy, it is totally irrational.
The Western world murmured appreciatively at the pope's apology, while global Islam protested that it 'didn't go far enough.'
In Cuba, more than half the members of the United Nations met to call the United Nations a tool of the Western powers and demanded the United States be singularly be stripped of its veto power, with Secretary General Kofi Annan nodding in agreement.
The Non-Aligned Movement issued its unanimous support for Iran's efforts to obtain nuclear weapons and promised to go to war with any nation that tried to stand in its way.
In response, the United States, which provides the UN with both its headquarters in New York and a quarter of its operating budget, is sending President Bush to give a speech extolling the United Nations for its diplomatic contributions to the world.
President Bush's address is to be followed by a rebuttal address by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who peppers every speech with threats to wipe Israel from the map of the Middle East.
Last week, I wrote a column objecting to the Democratic Party's efforts to claim Christianity as the moral basis for its support of political policies like abortion on demand, gay rights and opposition to letting children pray in public places.
In it, I listed a dozen Scriptures that prove life in the womb is sacred to God, that God opposes homosexual conduct, and that Jesus Christ commanded the Church to advance the teachings of Christianity.
I also wrote, "Don't email me to tell me some Republicans are no better. Declaring yourselves to the lesser of two evils is incompatible with the argument that one can be a good Christian and a good Democrat. It isn't about Republicans. It is about Jesus Christ."
Every single email objecting to my column listed the evils of the Republicans.
I also wrote, "I challenge my next group of critics; before you write to call me names, address the issues that I raise here."
Every single response was a litany of name-calling. Not one single respondent addressed a single, solitary point that I addressed in the column. One, in an exchange that began by calling me an American Taliban and then progressed through the evils wrought by the Republicans, eventually got around to claiming my entire column was just a defense of Republicans.
After I replied by quoting the relevant parts of my column that predicted exactly that response and pointed out that he had not addressed a single issue I actually wrote, responded by saying, "My question to you is; where in the Bible does it say anything about abortion, gay rights are school prayer? Nowhere."
When I pointed out that I listed a dozen verses addressing those exact issues, all in the original column, flashed me back with, "If the democrats are trying to co-opt Jesus as part of their political strategy they are wrong also."
At last, a point of common agreement. To get there, I had to resend the whole column, a paragraph at a time, to rebutt each charge I never made.
Every reply I got dripped with irrational hatred for the Republicans without any addressing a single point of the column, which they were apparently prepared to let stand as written while claiming the whole column was wrong.
In the 21st century, it is evidently rational to oppose a war that US troops are trying to win while claiming to support those troops by hoping they lose.
It is rational to address the specific criticisms of one political party by pointing out the (different) failings of the other party and pretending that constitutes answers the first set of specifics.
It is rational to apologize for calling someone violent because they responded by turning violent.
It is rational to want to strengthen the United Nations in response to UN efforts to sublimate your influence at the Security Council.
The Age of Reason has been replaced with the Age of Irrationality.
The Bible says, "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come." (2nd Timothy 3:1) In the same passage, Paul writes, "Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." (3:12)
And anybody who openly admits that believes that to be a true prophecy is deemed 'irrational'.
Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor - 09.23.2006
What characterized this era of Western thinking was an examination of both religious belief and piety.
In Europe, prominent Enlightenment philosophers like Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and David Hume questioned and attacked the existing institutions of both Church and State.
To set the stage, Europe had been ravaged by religious wars; when peace in the political situation had been restored, after the Peace of Westphalia and the English Civil War, an intellectual upheaval overturned the accepted belief that mysticism and individual revelation are the primary sources of knowledge and wisdom.
It was during the 18th century's "Age of Reason" and 19th century's "Age of Enlightenment" the philosophies of liberalism and atheism were explored and codified, out of which grew the philsophy of modernism that dominated much of the thinking during the 20th century.
From this point on, thinkers and writers were held to be free to pursue the truth in whatever form, without the threat of sanction for violating established ideas.
With the end of the Second World War and the rise of post-modernity, these same features came to be regarded as liabilities - excessive specialization, failure to heed traditional wisdom or provide for unintended consequences.
By the end of the 20th century, the natural progression of these philosophies resulted in much of the Western world entering what many call the post-Christian era.
Now, in the 21st century, a new philosophy is taking over the West. For want of a better name, one might call it the 'post-rational' era.
The previously mentioned philosophies gave great credibility to reason and logic. As the 21st century opens, these bedrock principles of rational thought are being thrown out the window in favor of what can best be described as wishful thinking.
We wish that Islam is a religion of peace and love, and therefore, no preponderence of evidence to the contrary is enough to shake that dream.
We wish the United Nations was an effective tool of international diplomacy and peace, and therefore, the preponderance of evidence that it disinterested in the former and incapable of the latter will be entertained.
In America, we wish that our culture reflected the purest principles of Christianity, and therefore, no argument to the contrary is convincing.
Let's explore the three examples I just outlined in a bit more detail.
President Bush, together with the rest of the Western world's leadership, are adamant in their contention that Islam is a religion of peace and love that was hijacked by a minority of fundamentalist extremists.
They repeat that each time that the West comes under Islamic attack, as if by saying it, it will become true. This isn't rational thinking, this is wishful thinking.
Last week, the Pope quoted a 13th century emperor's assessment of Islam, and was immediately excoriated for 'claiming' that Islam is a violent religion. In the first, the Pope didn't make the claim. He quoted somebody else who made that claim. And rationally, since the claim was made 700 years ago, it was referring to Islam in the 13th century.
No matter. Modern Islam, enraged at the thought that a guy who lived 700 years ago thought Islam was a violent religion, responded by unleashing a violent series of world-wide demonstrations and actions against symbols of Christianity.
The rhetoric from the Islamic world turned reason and rationality on its head. The head of the Islamic Republic of Iran issued a statement saying that "anybody who calls Islam intolerant brings violence upon himself."
That statement is so irrational that it sounds like something from Saturday Night Live. "Don't call me violent or I will kill you."
In protest at being called violent, Islamists burned Christian churches. A 61 year old nun was gunned down to protest the concept of Islamic violence. In dozens of world-wide demonstrations, the Pope was burned in effigy. Islamic groups issued death threats against the Pope. Others threatened to storm the Vatican and kill everyone inside.
In response, the Pope apologized profusely, with his secretary issuing a statement saying that Benedict’s position on Islam was unquestionably in line with the Vatican’s traditional teaching that the Rome “esteems Muslims, who adore the only God.”
To say that the god of Islam that sponsored the global rioting is the same God that told His followers to 'turn the other cheek' is more than just heresy, it is totally irrational.
The Western world murmured appreciatively at the pope's apology, while global Islam protested that it 'didn't go far enough.'
In Cuba, more than half the members of the United Nations met to call the United Nations a tool of the Western powers and demanded the United States be singularly be stripped of its veto power, with Secretary General Kofi Annan nodding in agreement.
The Non-Aligned Movement issued its unanimous support for Iran's efforts to obtain nuclear weapons and promised to go to war with any nation that tried to stand in its way.
In response, the United States, which provides the UN with both its headquarters in New York and a quarter of its operating budget, is sending President Bush to give a speech extolling the United Nations for its diplomatic contributions to the world.
President Bush's address is to be followed by a rebuttal address by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who peppers every speech with threats to wipe Israel from the map of the Middle East.
Last week, I wrote a column objecting to the Democratic Party's efforts to claim Christianity as the moral basis for its support of political policies like abortion on demand, gay rights and opposition to letting children pray in public places.
In it, I listed a dozen Scriptures that prove life in the womb is sacred to God, that God opposes homosexual conduct, and that Jesus Christ commanded the Church to advance the teachings of Christianity.
I also wrote, "Don't email me to tell me some Republicans are no better. Declaring yourselves to the lesser of two evils is incompatible with the argument that one can be a good Christian and a good Democrat. It isn't about Republicans. It is about Jesus Christ."
Every single email objecting to my column listed the evils of the Republicans.
I also wrote, "I challenge my next group of critics; before you write to call me names, address the issues that I raise here."
Every single response was a litany of name-calling. Not one single respondent addressed a single, solitary point that I addressed in the column. One, in an exchange that began by calling me an American Taliban and then progressed through the evils wrought by the Republicans, eventually got around to claiming my entire column was just a defense of Republicans.
After I replied by quoting the relevant parts of my column that predicted exactly that response and pointed out that he had not addressed a single issue I actually wrote, responded by saying, "My question to you is; where in the Bible does it say anything about abortion, gay rights are school prayer? Nowhere."
When I pointed out that I listed a dozen verses addressing those exact issues, all in the original column, flashed me back with, "If the democrats are trying to co-opt Jesus as part of their political strategy they are wrong also."
At last, a point of common agreement. To get there, I had to resend the whole column, a paragraph at a time, to rebutt each charge I never made.
Every reply I got dripped with irrational hatred for the Republicans without any addressing a single point of the column, which they were apparently prepared to let stand as written while claiming the whole column was wrong.
In the 21st century, it is evidently rational to oppose a war that US troops are trying to win while claiming to support those troops by hoping they lose.
It is rational to address the specific criticisms of one political party by pointing out the (different) failings of the other party and pretending that constitutes answers the first set of specifics.
It is rational to apologize for calling someone violent because they responded by turning violent.
It is rational to want to strengthen the United Nations in response to UN efforts to sublimate your influence at the Security Council.
The Age of Reason has been replaced with the Age of Irrationality.
The Bible says, "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come." (2nd Timothy 3:1) In the same passage, Paul writes, "Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." (3:12)
And anybody who openly admits that believes that to be a true prophecy is deemed 'irrational'.
Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor - 09.23.2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
The Pope's Message For Jewry
Pope Benedict XVI has become political Islam's newest excuse for rioting. Mobs from Rawalpindi to Ramallah are burning him in effigy. Muslim leaders from Gaza to Indonesia to Qatar, to Turkey to Washington and London are attacking the pope and demanding that he apologize to Islam for what they consider to be a heinous attack against their religion by the leader of the Catholic Church.
To recap what has been exhaustively reported in recent days, the pontiff's "crime" against Islam occurred in the course of a scholarly lecture at the University of Regensburg in his native Germany earlier in the month. Benedict quoted from a dialogue between Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and a Persian scholar of Islam circa 1391 where the emperor criticized harshly the Islamic practice of forcibly converting non-Muslims to Islam.
In the pope's words, the Byzantine emperor, "addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'
"The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of G-d and the nature of the soul. 'G-d,' he says, 'is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to G-d's nature.'"
As Benedict explained, the harsh judgment that the Byzantine emperor rendered on Islam stemmed directly from his Christian understanding of G-d as a reasonable deity. That is, according to Benedict, the reason a Christian leader was able to judge Islam, and so conduct a meaningful inter-cultural discussion of the merits of Islam and Christianity, was because he had a clear understanding of how his religion construed the G-d-created world and conceived of man's relationship to G-d.
Expanding on this theme, the pope told his audience that European civilization itself is a fusion of Christian faith and Greek philosophy of reason. Europe's current cultural drift, he argued, stems from the cultural separation, which began with the Reformation and went on through the Enlightenment between faith and reason. By relegating faith to a sub-culture that has no place in discussions of practical human endeavors, he said, Europeans have rendered themselves incapable of understanding who they are and of defending themselves and their values in a manner that the Byzantine emperor, in the pre-scientific era was able to do so stalwartly.
It could be said that the Islamic world's hysterical and violent reaction to Benedict's use of the 600-year-old dialogue only serves to reinforce the Byzantine emperor's impression that Islam does not perceive G-d as being a reasoning deity. But limiting an analysis of Benedict's lecture to the Muslim world's hysterical reaction it would ignore the pope's central point. Benedict's overarching message in that lecture was that to survive, a culture must be willing to embrace its identity, for if it does not, it won't even be capable of understanding why it should survive.
While Benedict's specific message was to his fellow Christians, the Jewish people should take heed of his general message for ourselves. Today, the Jewish people, in Israel and throughout the world find ourselves under attack from all quarters. The rise of anti-Semitism globally, and particularly in the Islamic world, finds us in a period of grave self-doubt. Like the Europeans, our ability to defend ourselves against the swelling ranks of our haters, is dependent our ability as a people and as individual Jews to embrace our identity as Jews.
Commenting on the nature of this surge of Jew hatred, the great (non-Jewish) Canadian pundit, Mark Steyn wrote last month in the National Review, "The oldest hatred didn't get that way without the ability to adapt. Jews are hated for what they are — so, at any moment in history, whatever they are is what they're hated for. For centuries in Europe, they were hated for being rootless-cosmopolitan types. Now there are no rootless European Jews to hate, so they're hated for being an illegitimate Middle Eastern nation-state. If the Zionist Entity were destroyed and the survivors forced to become perpetual cruise-line stewards plying the Caribbean, they'd be hated for that, too."
It is crucial that all of us internalize the message that these lines convey. For in recent years, rather than recognize the prejudice of our detractors, we have devoted ourselves to attempting to understand and so justify the hatred they heap upon us.
We tell ourselves we are hated because we are too strong — or because we are too weak. We are hated because we are too religious — or we are hated because we are not religious enough. We are hated because we insist on defending Israel — or we are hated because we are willing to compromise on Israel.
Yet, as Steyn wisely notes, we are not hated because of what we do, we are hated because we are Jews. In light of this, the best way to defend ourselves, the best way to safeguard our freedom and our heritage is to embrace and celebrate our identity as Jews. As Elie Wiesel once explained to me, the key to defending ourselves is to never allow our haters to tell us who we are. "Hatred only defines only the haters," he said.
And indeed, when we look at the manner in which Jews in Israel and throughout the world are being attacked today, we see that the attacks are based not on Jewish actions but on the fact that we are Jews. So it is that in the midst of yet another wave of violent attacks by Muslims against Jews in Norway last month, Norway's Jewish community warned its members not to wear yarmulkes or Stars of David in public.
So it is that in Hamas's charter, the movement which now controls the Palestinian Authority calls not for compromise with Israel but for all Jews to be expelled from the Land of Israel or forcibly converted to Islam in the course of the global jihad.
So it is that attacks against Jewish supporters of Israel in the West target not the substance of their arguments, but their right as Jews to lobby for Israel in their countries of citizenship.
"We Jews," Wiesel explained, "have always defined ourselves as the Children of Abraham, Issac and Jacob." Indeed, at Mt. Sinai, in our acceptance of the Ten Commandments, the Jewish people became the first nation in history to self-consciously define itself. And each subsequent generation of Jews has remade that choice. Jews do not exist, as Jean Paul Sarte ignorantly argued, because anti-Semites exist. The leader of the existentialist movement should have understood; anti-Semites exist because anti-Semites choose to exist.
As Steyn notes, today hatred against Jews is anchored on Israel. Provoked by this new form of Jew hatred, some Jews, both in Israel and in the Diaspora see Israel as a burden. This is a self-inflicted tragedy. For if we look at Israel, we see that far from being a burden, our Jewish State is one of the most stunning successes of Jewish history.
Today, Israel is the home of the largest Jewish community in the world. More Jews live in Israel today than at any time in our history. And the state in which we live is one of the most vibrant, optimistic, "happening" countries in the world. We have the highest birthrate in the Western world. Rates of entrepreneurship are among the highest in the world.
We are one of the most highly educated societies in the world. Over the past fifteen years, more than a dozen colleges have been established in Israel and last year the government decided to allow two of these colleges to join Israel's nine research universities as full-fledged, independent research universities.
Israelis are among the most patriotic citizens in the world. Our patriotism is expressed in the high level of volunteerism in all age groups. In the recent war, tens of thousands of reservists willingly left their families and jobs to take up arms to defend the country and hundreds of thousands of Israelis volunteered to help our one million brothers and sisters whose homes were targeted by rockets, missiles and mortars.
Jewish life blossoms in Israel as it has nowhere else in our history. The rates of literacy in Jewish learning in Israel are higher than they have ever been anywhere in our history. Israel is the home of some half dozen generations of Jews whose mother tongue is the language of the Bible and the Talmud.
Israel's success stems from its serving as a vehicle that allows us to express our heritage in all facets of society. And our Jewish heritage is one of the most precious heritages known to man.
The Jewish people gave humanity the concepts of G-d, liberty and law. Our understanding of the fallibility of mankind has prevented us from being tempted by false prophets who promise us heaven on Earth, and has allowed us to take practical steps towards improving our lot and our world.
All of the ideals that Israel represents both spiritually and physically have for millennia formed the foundations for human progress and freedom throughout the world. Our willingness to retain our loyalty to our identity and our heritage has been the key to our survival throughout the ages in the face of countless foes who sought to destroy us both spiritually and physically.
Rosh Hashana marks the beginning of the Ten Days of Repentance that precede Yom Kippur. To properly atone for our sins and correct our mistakes, we must understand who we are and what we represent and what we can and should aspire to as Jews. To do this, we must reject the notion that our haters can tell us who we are. To do this we must embrace our Jewish identity and uphold our commitment to our collective destiny.
The fact that hatred of Jews has endured for so long says nothing about the nature of the Jewish people. What does speak volumes about the nature of the Jewish people is that our fortunes throughout the ages have been directly related to our ability to spurn our enemies' distorted portraits of the Jewish people and our willingness to endure and progress as Jews in the midst of that hatred.
Pope Benedict is able to discuss Islam because, secure in his Christian identity, he has a clear basis for judging the goodness or unreasonableness of Muslim values and behavior. Whether we agree with his judgments or not, through his willingness to judge, Benedict capably defends and advances his faith.
When we embrace our moral and intellectual identity as Jews, we are similarly capable of meeting the challenges of our times. It is my prayer that in 5767, the Jewish people will rally around our heritage, history and culture and so pave the way for a secure, peaceful and moral future for our people and our world.
Jewish World Review
09.22.2006
To recap what has been exhaustively reported in recent days, the pontiff's "crime" against Islam occurred in the course of a scholarly lecture at the University of Regensburg in his native Germany earlier in the month. Benedict quoted from a dialogue between Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and a Persian scholar of Islam circa 1391 where the emperor criticized harshly the Islamic practice of forcibly converting non-Muslims to Islam.
In the pope's words, the Byzantine emperor, "addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'
"The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of G-d and the nature of the soul. 'G-d,' he says, 'is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to G-d's nature.'"
As Benedict explained, the harsh judgment that the Byzantine emperor rendered on Islam stemmed directly from his Christian understanding of G-d as a reasonable deity. That is, according to Benedict, the reason a Christian leader was able to judge Islam, and so conduct a meaningful inter-cultural discussion of the merits of Islam and Christianity, was because he had a clear understanding of how his religion construed the G-d-created world and conceived of man's relationship to G-d.
Expanding on this theme, the pope told his audience that European civilization itself is a fusion of Christian faith and Greek philosophy of reason. Europe's current cultural drift, he argued, stems from the cultural separation, which began with the Reformation and went on through the Enlightenment between faith and reason. By relegating faith to a sub-culture that has no place in discussions of practical human endeavors, he said, Europeans have rendered themselves incapable of understanding who they are and of defending themselves and their values in a manner that the Byzantine emperor, in the pre-scientific era was able to do so stalwartly.
It could be said that the Islamic world's hysterical and violent reaction to Benedict's use of the 600-year-old dialogue only serves to reinforce the Byzantine emperor's impression that Islam does not perceive G-d as being a reasoning deity. But limiting an analysis of Benedict's lecture to the Muslim world's hysterical reaction it would ignore the pope's central point. Benedict's overarching message in that lecture was that to survive, a culture must be willing to embrace its identity, for if it does not, it won't even be capable of understanding why it should survive.
While Benedict's specific message was to his fellow Christians, the Jewish people should take heed of his general message for ourselves. Today, the Jewish people, in Israel and throughout the world find ourselves under attack from all quarters. The rise of anti-Semitism globally, and particularly in the Islamic world, finds us in a period of grave self-doubt. Like the Europeans, our ability to defend ourselves against the swelling ranks of our haters, is dependent our ability as a people and as individual Jews to embrace our identity as Jews.
Commenting on the nature of this surge of Jew hatred, the great (non-Jewish) Canadian pundit, Mark Steyn wrote last month in the National Review, "The oldest hatred didn't get that way without the ability to adapt. Jews are hated for what they are — so, at any moment in history, whatever they are is what they're hated for. For centuries in Europe, they were hated for being rootless-cosmopolitan types. Now there are no rootless European Jews to hate, so they're hated for being an illegitimate Middle Eastern nation-state. If the Zionist Entity were destroyed and the survivors forced to become perpetual cruise-line stewards plying the Caribbean, they'd be hated for that, too."
It is crucial that all of us internalize the message that these lines convey. For in recent years, rather than recognize the prejudice of our detractors, we have devoted ourselves to attempting to understand and so justify the hatred they heap upon us.
We tell ourselves we are hated because we are too strong — or because we are too weak. We are hated because we are too religious — or we are hated because we are not religious enough. We are hated because we insist on defending Israel — or we are hated because we are willing to compromise on Israel.
Yet, as Steyn wisely notes, we are not hated because of what we do, we are hated because we are Jews. In light of this, the best way to defend ourselves, the best way to safeguard our freedom and our heritage is to embrace and celebrate our identity as Jews. As Elie Wiesel once explained to me, the key to defending ourselves is to never allow our haters to tell us who we are. "Hatred only defines only the haters," he said.
And indeed, when we look at the manner in which Jews in Israel and throughout the world are being attacked today, we see that the attacks are based not on Jewish actions but on the fact that we are Jews. So it is that in the midst of yet another wave of violent attacks by Muslims against Jews in Norway last month, Norway's Jewish community warned its members not to wear yarmulkes or Stars of David in public.
So it is that in Hamas's charter, the movement which now controls the Palestinian Authority calls not for compromise with Israel but for all Jews to be expelled from the Land of Israel or forcibly converted to Islam in the course of the global jihad.
So it is that attacks against Jewish supporters of Israel in the West target not the substance of their arguments, but their right as Jews to lobby for Israel in their countries of citizenship.
"We Jews," Wiesel explained, "have always defined ourselves as the Children of Abraham, Issac and Jacob." Indeed, at Mt. Sinai, in our acceptance of the Ten Commandments, the Jewish people became the first nation in history to self-consciously define itself. And each subsequent generation of Jews has remade that choice. Jews do not exist, as Jean Paul Sarte ignorantly argued, because anti-Semites exist. The leader of the existentialist movement should have understood; anti-Semites exist because anti-Semites choose to exist.
As Steyn notes, today hatred against Jews is anchored on Israel. Provoked by this new form of Jew hatred, some Jews, both in Israel and in the Diaspora see Israel as a burden. This is a self-inflicted tragedy. For if we look at Israel, we see that far from being a burden, our Jewish State is one of the most stunning successes of Jewish history.
Today, Israel is the home of the largest Jewish community in the world. More Jews live in Israel today than at any time in our history. And the state in which we live is one of the most vibrant, optimistic, "happening" countries in the world. We have the highest birthrate in the Western world. Rates of entrepreneurship are among the highest in the world.
We are one of the most highly educated societies in the world. Over the past fifteen years, more than a dozen colleges have been established in Israel and last year the government decided to allow two of these colleges to join Israel's nine research universities as full-fledged, independent research universities.
Israelis are among the most patriotic citizens in the world. Our patriotism is expressed in the high level of volunteerism in all age groups. In the recent war, tens of thousands of reservists willingly left their families and jobs to take up arms to defend the country and hundreds of thousands of Israelis volunteered to help our one million brothers and sisters whose homes were targeted by rockets, missiles and mortars.
Jewish life blossoms in Israel as it has nowhere else in our history. The rates of literacy in Jewish learning in Israel are higher than they have ever been anywhere in our history. Israel is the home of some half dozen generations of Jews whose mother tongue is the language of the Bible and the Talmud.
Israel's success stems from its serving as a vehicle that allows us to express our heritage in all facets of society. And our Jewish heritage is one of the most precious heritages known to man.
The Jewish people gave humanity the concepts of G-d, liberty and law. Our understanding of the fallibility of mankind has prevented us from being tempted by false prophets who promise us heaven on Earth, and has allowed us to take practical steps towards improving our lot and our world.
All of the ideals that Israel represents both spiritually and physically have for millennia formed the foundations for human progress and freedom throughout the world. Our willingness to retain our loyalty to our identity and our heritage has been the key to our survival throughout the ages in the face of countless foes who sought to destroy us both spiritually and physically.
Rosh Hashana marks the beginning of the Ten Days of Repentance that precede Yom Kippur. To properly atone for our sins and correct our mistakes, we must understand who we are and what we represent and what we can and should aspire to as Jews. To do this, we must reject the notion that our haters can tell us who we are. To do this we must embrace our Jewish identity and uphold our commitment to our collective destiny.
The fact that hatred of Jews has endured for so long says nothing about the nature of the Jewish people. What does speak volumes about the nature of the Jewish people is that our fortunes throughout the ages have been directly related to our ability to spurn our enemies' distorted portraits of the Jewish people and our willingness to endure and progress as Jews in the midst of that hatred.
Pope Benedict is able to discuss Islam because, secure in his Christian identity, he has a clear basis for judging the goodness or unreasonableness of Muslim values and behavior. Whether we agree with his judgments or not, through his willingness to judge, Benedict capably defends and advances his faith.
When we embrace our moral and intellectual identity as Jews, we are similarly capable of meeting the challenges of our times. It is my prayer that in 5767, the Jewish people will rally around our heritage, history and culture and so pave the way for a secure, peaceful and moral future for our people and our world.
Jewish World Review
09.22.2006
Thursday, September 21, 2006
The New 'Christian' Democrats
I get emails all the time from Democrats who jump all over me, telling me that they are life-long Christians and saying 'how dare I suggest that being a Christian and being a Democrat are mutually exclusive?' Did I say that? (I believe it, but I don't remember saying so. No matter. I am saying so now.)
I suppose it is possible to be a Christian AND a Democrat, but I don't believe it is possible for anyone to be sincere about either and make a credible claim to be both.
How can one be a sincere Christian and support the ACLU's efforts to ban God from public schools, for example. How can one support the appointment of judicial candidates based solely on the criteria that they have a philosophical agreement with Roe v. Wade while still claiming to be a Christian? It doesn't make any sense to me.
It is incomprehensible to me that the Democrats can oppose a candidate based on his personal philosophy and then deny that is the criteria they are using, at the same time SAYING that is the criteria they are basing their opposition on?
The Democrats oppose virtually every single major teaching of Christianity, but take great offense at any suggestion that they are not just as devout in their Christianity as 'the other guys.'
One of the first arguments offered is that Republicans 'aren't any better.' To prove it, they trot out endless examples of poor Christian witness among Republicans. I am not sure how that is relevant, but it does fit into the overall worldview of the US Democratic party.
If you can't defend yourself, attack the other guy. They don't actually see it themselves, but all they are really doing when they do that is presenting themselves as the lesser of two evils.
I can understand their doing that politically, but when they attempt to establish themselves as good Christians by arguing they are less evil than bad Christians, it makes me wonder if they can tell the difference.
USAToday published a story about a new Democratic initiative to capture votes in the next election by using Jesus Christ as a campaign spokesman.
"The Democratic Party, saddled with a secular image that has hurt it in elections, is getting religion. Some Democrats have been mentioning God more often since the party lost the 2004 presidential election. To encourage that trend, former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman David Wilhelm, an Ohio investment banker and churchgoing Methodist, is launching a website today that is aimed at persuading more devout Christians to vote Democratic."
Call me a cynic, but I am cynical. Evidently, so is the author of the USAToday column.
Notes Martin Kasindorf, "Howard Dean was asked in January, 2004, to name his favorite book in the New Testament. "The Book of Job," he answered. It's in the Old Testament."
The article continues. . . "John Green, a University of Akron professor who studies religion's role in politics, said Democrats "wouldn't have had to move very many religious people to have won the (2004) election. There is a sense that an opportunity was missed, that many of their leaders just didn't get it, and that the time has come to educate them. . . [David] Wilhelm says: "In the next presidential election, a winning Democratic nominee is going to have to prove that he can navigate the shoals of the faith issue. That doesn't mean you have to go around spouting biblical verses. You should have the ability to speak from your heart on those values that come from religious traditions."
Ahem. Which values that come from religious traditions? Gay marriage? Abortion rights? Criminalizing school prayer? Removing crosses from public lands?
In a poll released Aug. 24, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press says, "The Democratic Party continues to face a serious 'God problem.' "
The nationwide survey showed 47% perceived the Republican Party as friendly to religion, but only 26% saw Democrats that way. (That 26% must be the ones that write to me.)
Frankly, I don't see the Democrats as unfriendly to 'religion'. I see them as unfriendly to Christianity. 'Religion' is man's way of making HIMSELF acceptable to God. Christianity is God's way of making man acceptable unto Himself.
There is both a distinction and a difference.
Under the title, "To Believe that Jesus Rode a Donkey", Democrat Jesse Lava writes in the Huffington Post;
"The truth is millions of us Christians are Democrats not in spite of our faith, but precisely because of it -- and millions more would be open to the Democratic Party if it engaged them on their level, presenting political ideas in the context of religious values."
Note that Lava switched horses in mid-stream, jumping from Christianity to 'religious values' as if they are one and the same.
The 'Jesus Rode a Donkey' title implies that, 'Jesus is a Democrat.' Meanwhile, Islam claims that Jesus is a Muslim. Does it strike you as odd, as it does me, that the only ones in America who are NOT allowed to claim Jesus are Christians?
(Try telling somebody about salvation through Jesus Christ alone while standing on federal property. Let me know what happens.)
The point I am making is not 'Republicans good, Democrats bad.' If you think it is, you must be a Democrat. Let me sort it out for you.
The point I am making is 'Democrats bad'. Clear enough?
To co-opt Jesus Christ as a political spokesman while opposing everything the Bible teaches is not just bad. It is disgusting.
Jesus is a Democrat? The same Jesus Who inspired the Bible? The same Jesus John 1:1 calls "the Word"? What sayeth the Word?
The Bible teaches the sanctity of life -- from the womb.
"I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly." (Psalm 22:10)
"Did not He that made me in the womb make him? and did not One fashion us in the womb?" (Job 31:15)
"Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is His reward." (Psalms 127:3)
"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5)
"For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy." (Luke 1:44)
The Bible teaches about gay marriage:
"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created He them."
"And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. . . Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. " (Genesis 2:22,24)
"And He answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female . . " Matthew 19:4)
"But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female." (Mark 10:6)
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:13)
"And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet." (Romans 1:27)
The Bible teaches of the Great Commission: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:" (Matthew 28:19)
How does that square with the Democratic principle that forbids little children to pray in public schools?
Am I bashing Democrats? Only if what I am saying is not true. But telling the truth, if the truth is unflattering, is considered 'bashing' -- just as quoting the Koran is considered 'anti-Muslim' -- unless those quotes selected paint Islam in a favorable light.
I challenge my next group of critics; before you write to call me names, address the issues that I raise here.
Don't email me to tell me some Republicans are no better.
Declaring yourselves to be the lesser of two evils is incompatible with the argument that one can be a good Christian and a good Democrat. It isn't about Republicans. It is about Jesus Christ.
Correct me on the issues. Am I misunderstanding the Democratic platform on abortion, gay rights, judicial appointments, the ACLU and separation of church and state issues?
Am I misunderstanding the teachings of Scripture on those issues? Am I wrong in my distinction between religion and Christianity? If I am wrong, I really want to know.
What I don't want to know is that you are right because the other guy isn't any better.
I am not a partisan. I am a Christian. I am not defending the Republican party. I am opposing the co-opting of my Lord and Savior as a cheap partisan symbol and a political spokesman for an anti-Christian agenda dressed up as a form of Christianity but rooted in a sliding scale of principles.
It is possible to be a saved Christian and be a Democrat. Being a Christian means trusting in the Shed Blood of Christ for one's personal salvation. But it is NOT possible to be a good Democrat without opposing the central teachings of Christianity.
If you are going to claim Him, claim Him as your personal Savior. Don't try to claim Him as your political savior. It cheapens Him -- and it cheapens you.
God promises; "If My people, which are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." (2nd Chronicles 7:14)
God uses the conditional; 'if'. That means there is an opposite promise as well. If 'His people' don't, then He won't, either.
Since I live here, that makes it personal.
Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor - 09.21.2006
I suppose it is possible to be a Christian AND a Democrat, but I don't believe it is possible for anyone to be sincere about either and make a credible claim to be both.
How can one be a sincere Christian and support the ACLU's efforts to ban God from public schools, for example. How can one support the appointment of judicial candidates based solely on the criteria that they have a philosophical agreement with Roe v. Wade while still claiming to be a Christian? It doesn't make any sense to me.
It is incomprehensible to me that the Democrats can oppose a candidate based on his personal philosophy and then deny that is the criteria they are using, at the same time SAYING that is the criteria they are basing their opposition on?
The Democrats oppose virtually every single major teaching of Christianity, but take great offense at any suggestion that they are not just as devout in their Christianity as 'the other guys.'
One of the first arguments offered is that Republicans 'aren't any better.' To prove it, they trot out endless examples of poor Christian witness among Republicans. I am not sure how that is relevant, but it does fit into the overall worldview of the US Democratic party.
If you can't defend yourself, attack the other guy. They don't actually see it themselves, but all they are really doing when they do that is presenting themselves as the lesser of two evils.
I can understand their doing that politically, but when they attempt to establish themselves as good Christians by arguing they are less evil than bad Christians, it makes me wonder if they can tell the difference.
USAToday published a story about a new Democratic initiative to capture votes in the next election by using Jesus Christ as a campaign spokesman.
"The Democratic Party, saddled with a secular image that has hurt it in elections, is getting religion. Some Democrats have been mentioning God more often since the party lost the 2004 presidential election. To encourage that trend, former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman David Wilhelm, an Ohio investment banker and churchgoing Methodist, is launching a website today that is aimed at persuading more devout Christians to vote Democratic."
Call me a cynic, but I am cynical. Evidently, so is the author of the USAToday column.
Notes Martin Kasindorf, "Howard Dean was asked in January, 2004, to name his favorite book in the New Testament. "The Book of Job," he answered. It's in the Old Testament."
The article continues. . . "John Green, a University of Akron professor who studies religion's role in politics, said Democrats "wouldn't have had to move very many religious people to have won the (2004) election. There is a sense that an opportunity was missed, that many of their leaders just didn't get it, and that the time has come to educate them. . . [David] Wilhelm says: "In the next presidential election, a winning Democratic nominee is going to have to prove that he can navigate the shoals of the faith issue. That doesn't mean you have to go around spouting biblical verses. You should have the ability to speak from your heart on those values that come from religious traditions."
Ahem. Which values that come from religious traditions? Gay marriage? Abortion rights? Criminalizing school prayer? Removing crosses from public lands?
In a poll released Aug. 24, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press says, "The Democratic Party continues to face a serious 'God problem.' "
The nationwide survey showed 47% perceived the Republican Party as friendly to religion, but only 26% saw Democrats that way. (That 26% must be the ones that write to me.)
Frankly, I don't see the Democrats as unfriendly to 'religion'. I see them as unfriendly to Christianity. 'Religion' is man's way of making HIMSELF acceptable to God. Christianity is God's way of making man acceptable unto Himself.
There is both a distinction and a difference.
Under the title, "To Believe that Jesus Rode a Donkey", Democrat Jesse Lava writes in the Huffington Post;
"The truth is millions of us Christians are Democrats not in spite of our faith, but precisely because of it -- and millions more would be open to the Democratic Party if it engaged them on their level, presenting political ideas in the context of religious values."
Note that Lava switched horses in mid-stream, jumping from Christianity to 'religious values' as if they are one and the same.
The 'Jesus Rode a Donkey' title implies that, 'Jesus is a Democrat.' Meanwhile, Islam claims that Jesus is a Muslim. Does it strike you as odd, as it does me, that the only ones in America who are NOT allowed to claim Jesus are Christians?
(Try telling somebody about salvation through Jesus Christ alone while standing on federal property. Let me know what happens.)
The point I am making is not 'Republicans good, Democrats bad.' If you think it is, you must be a Democrat. Let me sort it out for you.
The point I am making is 'Democrats bad'. Clear enough?
To co-opt Jesus Christ as a political spokesman while opposing everything the Bible teaches is not just bad. It is disgusting.
Jesus is a Democrat? The same Jesus Who inspired the Bible? The same Jesus John 1:1 calls "the Word"? What sayeth the Word?
The Bible teaches the sanctity of life -- from the womb.
"I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly." (Psalm 22:10)
"Did not He that made me in the womb make him? and did not One fashion us in the womb?" (Job 31:15)
"Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is His reward." (Psalms 127:3)
"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5)
"For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy." (Luke 1:44)
The Bible teaches about gay marriage:
"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created He them."
"And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. . . Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. " (Genesis 2:22,24)
"And He answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female . . " Matthew 19:4)
"But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female." (Mark 10:6)
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:13)
"And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet." (Romans 1:27)
The Bible teaches of the Great Commission: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:" (Matthew 28:19)
How does that square with the Democratic principle that forbids little children to pray in public schools?
Am I bashing Democrats? Only if what I am saying is not true. But telling the truth, if the truth is unflattering, is considered 'bashing' -- just as quoting the Koran is considered 'anti-Muslim' -- unless those quotes selected paint Islam in a favorable light.
I challenge my next group of critics; before you write to call me names, address the issues that I raise here.
Don't email me to tell me some Republicans are no better.
Declaring yourselves to be the lesser of two evils is incompatible with the argument that one can be a good Christian and a good Democrat. It isn't about Republicans. It is about Jesus Christ.
Correct me on the issues. Am I misunderstanding the Democratic platform on abortion, gay rights, judicial appointments, the ACLU and separation of church and state issues?
Am I misunderstanding the teachings of Scripture on those issues? Am I wrong in my distinction between religion and Christianity? If I am wrong, I really want to know.
What I don't want to know is that you are right because the other guy isn't any better.
I am not a partisan. I am a Christian. I am not defending the Republican party. I am opposing the co-opting of my Lord and Savior as a cheap partisan symbol and a political spokesman for an anti-Christian agenda dressed up as a form of Christianity but rooted in a sliding scale of principles.
It is possible to be a saved Christian and be a Democrat. Being a Christian means trusting in the Shed Blood of Christ for one's personal salvation. But it is NOT possible to be a good Democrat without opposing the central teachings of Christianity.
If you are going to claim Him, claim Him as your personal Savior. Don't try to claim Him as your political savior. It cheapens Him -- and it cheapens you.
God promises; "If My people, which are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." (2nd Chronicles 7:14)
God uses the conditional; 'if'. That means there is an opposite promise as well. If 'His people' don't, then He won't, either.
Since I live here, that makes it personal.
Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor - 09.21.2006
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Shame March Gets Green Light
A homosexual organization in Jerusalem is determined to ensure that a twice-cancelled public parading of perverse sexual lifestyles through the streets of the sacred city will take place after all.
The fact that the "Gay" shame event will offend millions of Jews and Christians has only served to intensify the efforts of the "Open House," which successfully persuaded Israel's High Court of Justice to rule that the march will now be held on Friday, November 10.
On that day, the tens of thousands of Jerusalemites who normally use Friday to prepare for Shabbat will have to ensure that they and their children are off the streets if they do not wish to be exposed to half-naked men kissing each other, and gyrating women embracing, in the city Israel's God chose to call His own.
By given the event its blessing, the High Court has helped promote and protect a lifestyle that holds untold numbers of people prisoner. And it has aided and abetted those who have made their goal the perversion and imprisonment of our youth.
Jerusalem Newswire
09.19.2006
The fact that the "Gay" shame event will offend millions of Jews and Christians has only served to intensify the efforts of the "Open House," which successfully persuaded Israel's High Court of Justice to rule that the march will now be held on Friday, November 10.
On that day, the tens of thousands of Jerusalemites who normally use Friday to prepare for Shabbat will have to ensure that they and their children are off the streets if they do not wish to be exposed to half-naked men kissing each other, and gyrating women embracing, in the city Israel's God chose to call His own.
By given the event its blessing, the High Court has helped promote and protect a lifestyle that holds untold numbers of people prisoner. And it has aided and abetted those who have made their goal the perversion and imprisonment of our youth.
Jerusalem Newswire
09.19.2006
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Red Cross For Terrorists-What For Captive Israelis?
Attorneys for three Hizb'allah terrorists caught during the recent war in southern Lebanon argued in Nazareth District Court Monday that their clients should receive prisoner of war (POW) status.
The three were indicted on charges of killing IDF soldiers with an anti-tank missile during a kidnapping operation July 12 which resulted in the capture of IDF reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. The attack ignited the recent 34-day war with Hizbullah terrorists in southern Lebanon.
Attorneys Smadar Ben Nathan and Itay Hermlin – representing the three guerrillas –contended that their clients were not bound by the laws of Israel and should be granted the status of prisoners of war (POW).
Hermlin also argued that “”Hizb'allah must be defeated on the battleground and not in criminal court.” He charged that the legal process was, in effect, illegal.
The three terrorists, Mahmoud Ali Suleiman, Mohammed Sarur and Mahar Qurani, were charged with a long list of additional crimes.
Red Cross Visits Hizbullah Hostages, Blocked From Seeing IDF Captives
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross reported that they visited the three captured Hizbullah terrorist guerrillas who were being held in Israel, but not the IDF prisoners of war held by terrorists in the north and south.
The organization made no mention of any efforts to gain access to Regev and Goldwasser who are being held by Hizb'allah terrorists in an undisclosed location.
Since the cease-fire established under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, Hizb'allah has resisted efforts by the Red Cross and international figures - such as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and American civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Neither has the ICRC made contact with IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit, a prisoner of Hamas terrorists who rejected a Red Cross appeal to permit its representatives to visit him to ascertain his condition.
Hamas officials stated they could not permit the request while “tens of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons are not permitted to visit with their families.” Palestinian Authority prisoners in Israeli jails are visited every week by their families.
The whereabouts and condition of all three of the IDF troops, assuming they are alive, are not known. Nevertheless, Israel has allowed the Red Cross to visit the terrorists, who "are in good health" according to ICRC officials quoted by the Beirut Daily Star.
The ICRC mission statement includes a mandate by the Geneva Conventions which includes tasking the ICRC with visiting prisoners of war. The Geneva Conventions are binding instruments of international law, applicable worldwide, according to the ICRC website.
Arutz Sheva
09.19.2006
The three were indicted on charges of killing IDF soldiers with an anti-tank missile during a kidnapping operation July 12 which resulted in the capture of IDF reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. The attack ignited the recent 34-day war with Hizbullah terrorists in southern Lebanon.
Attorneys Smadar Ben Nathan and Itay Hermlin – representing the three guerrillas –contended that their clients were not bound by the laws of Israel and should be granted the status of prisoners of war (POW).
Hermlin also argued that “”Hizb'allah must be defeated on the battleground and not in criminal court.” He charged that the legal process was, in effect, illegal.
The three terrorists, Mahmoud Ali Suleiman, Mohammed Sarur and Mahar Qurani, were charged with a long list of additional crimes.
Red Cross Visits Hizbullah Hostages, Blocked From Seeing IDF Captives
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross reported that they visited the three captured Hizbullah terrorist guerrillas who were being held in Israel, but not the IDF prisoners of war held by terrorists in the north and south.
The organization made no mention of any efforts to gain access to Regev and Goldwasser who are being held by Hizb'allah terrorists in an undisclosed location.
Since the cease-fire established under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, Hizb'allah has resisted efforts by the Red Cross and international figures - such as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and American civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Neither has the ICRC made contact with IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit, a prisoner of Hamas terrorists who rejected a Red Cross appeal to permit its representatives to visit him to ascertain his condition.
Hamas officials stated they could not permit the request while “tens of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons are not permitted to visit with their families.” Palestinian Authority prisoners in Israeli jails are visited every week by their families.
The whereabouts and condition of all three of the IDF troops, assuming they are alive, are not known. Nevertheless, Israel has allowed the Red Cross to visit the terrorists, who "are in good health" according to ICRC officials quoted by the Beirut Daily Star.
The ICRC mission statement includes a mandate by the Geneva Conventions which includes tasking the ICRC with visiting prisoners of war. The Geneva Conventions are binding instruments of international law, applicable worldwide, according to the ICRC website.
Arutz Sheva
09.19.2006
Monday, September 18, 2006
Why Are Muslims So Defensive?
Most parents know that when a child gets overly defensive, he is usually guilty of the wrongdoing he is being accused of. The same is certainly true with adults, as well as whole people groups.
Take for instance the Muslim world’s wild overreaction first to the publication of a political cartoon featuring the Prophet Mohammed, then to Pope Benedict XVI’s attempt to emphasize the incompatibility of violence and faith in a university lecture during which he quoted a Byzantine emperor who denounced Mohammed’s calls for jihad.
(Of particular note are the “Palestinians,” who have apparently grown so used to their violent ways being excused that they are openly attacking Christian churches in response to the pope’s remarks.)
If Islam really is tolerant and advocates peace, then why do its practitioners react in such ways over what are in reality very minor provocations? The media and Muslim clerics in this part of the world make a regular habit of denouncing and bad mouthing Jews and Christians, but the result is never widespread Jewish or Christian violence against Muslims.
If you want people to believe that you are tolerant and non-violent, then it is best to not respond to accusations of violence with violence. To do so incidcates that you are in fact guilty.
Zionist
09.18.2006
Take for instance the Muslim world’s wild overreaction first to the publication of a political cartoon featuring the Prophet Mohammed, then to Pope Benedict XVI’s attempt to emphasize the incompatibility of violence and faith in a university lecture during which he quoted a Byzantine emperor who denounced Mohammed’s calls for jihad.
(Of particular note are the “Palestinians,” who have apparently grown so used to their violent ways being excused that they are openly attacking Christian churches in response to the pope’s remarks.)
If Islam really is tolerant and advocates peace, then why do its practitioners react in such ways over what are in reality very minor provocations? The media and Muslim clerics in this part of the world make a regular habit of denouncing and bad mouthing Jews and Christians, but the result is never widespread Jewish or Christian violence against Muslims.
If you want people to believe that you are tolerant and non-violent, then it is best to not respond to accusations of violence with violence. To do so incidcates that you are in fact guilty.
Zionist
09.18.2006
Sunday, September 17, 2006
The Free World's Achilles Heel
Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair is Israel's best friend in Europe. And he's not a very good friend.
Immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, Blair was instrumental in convincing US President George W. Bush to view the Palestinian jihad against Israel as a conflict completely separate from the global jihad. His success in convincing Bush of this distinction turned the anti-Semitic - not to mention strategically disastrous — view that terrorists who kill Israelis should be treated differently from terrorists who kill anyone else, into one of the cognitive foundations of the US war on Islamic terror. This foundation was first enunciated at Bush's address Sept. 20 before the joint session of Congress where he identified "every terrorist with global reach" — that is every terrorist that isn't part of the Palestinian Authority — as enemies of the US.
Later, Blair was a principal force behind Bush's move to abandon the guidelines for dealing with the Palestinians that he enunciated in his speech on June 24, 2002. In that address, Bush stipulated that the Palestinians needed to transform themselves from a society that supported terror into one that combated terror in order to receive US support for Palestinian statehood. Shortly after the fall of Baghdad to Coalition forces in April 2003, Blair convinced Bush to accept the Road Map plan for Palestinian statehood. The Road Map, which effectively locks in US support for Palestinian statehood irrespective of Palestinian terrorism and radicalism, represented a practical abandonment of the positions that Bush set out in his June 24, 2002 address.
During his visit to the region this week, keeping with his studied habit, Blair ignored the fact that the Iranian-backed Hamas government was elected to lead the Palestinian Authority by a large majority of Palestinians. He ignored the fact that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's has voiced support for the abduction and continued captivity of IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit and for the continuation of the terror war against Israel. He ignored the fact that rather than working to overthrow the Hamas government, Abbas has begged Hamas to allow Fatah to join their government. To this end, Abbas has accepted Hamas's policy guidelines that reject recognizing Israel's right to exist and commit all Palestinians to unite in their war against Israel. Ignoring all these inconvenient facts, Blair called on the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government to renew negotiations with Abbas on the basis of the Road Map.
And yet, for all this, Tony Blair is Israel's best friend in Europe today. He is Israel's best friend because, as opposed to all his colleagues in both Britain and the EU, Blair at least recognizes that the global jihad is a threat to the free world and that the cost of not fighting the forces of jihad will be the loss of our freedom.
Soon Israel's closest European friend will exit the world stage after being effectively sacked by his own Labor party last week. British political commentators say that chances are slim that Blair will manage to hold the reins of power as a lame duck for the next twelve months as he pledged. More likely, he will leave 10 Downing Street in a matter of months.
The two men most likely to succeed Blair — Chancellor Gordon Brown and Tory leader David Cameron — will be more similar in their attitudes towards Israel and the US to French President Jacques Chirac than to Blair. This is the case first and foremost because that is what the British people expect of them.
British antipathy towards the US and Israel was clearly exposed in an opinion poll published on Sept. 6 in the Times of London. The poll showed that 73 percent of Britons believe that Blair's foreign policy, and especially his "support for the invasion of Iraq and refusal to demand an immediate cease-fire by Israel in the recent war against Hizbullah, has significantly increased the risk of terrorist attacks on Britain."
More than 62 percent said that to "reduce the risk of terrorist attacks on Britain, the government should change its foreign policy, in particular by distancing itself from America, being more critical of Israel and declaring a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq."
The day after the poll was published, Blair announced that he would leave office in a year. Also on Sept. 7, a committee of British Members of Parliament released a report on anti-Semitism in Britain. The all-party committee found that that since the Palestinian jihad against Israel began in 2000, anti-Semitism in Britain has become a mainstream phenomenon. Attacks against Jews in Britain were at an all time high over the summer.
In their anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, the British, of course, are no different from their Continental brethren. And the situation in Europe is alarming. Writing in Frontpage magazine this week, Islamic expert Andrew Boston reported that in November 2005, Stephen Steinlight, the former director of education at the US Holocaust Memorial Council told a conference in Washington that on average, Muslim attacks against Jews in Paris occur twelve time a day. According to Steinlight, with this frequency of attacks, French anti-Semitic violence is approaching the level of anti-Semitic violence in Germany during the days of the Weimar Republic.
These attacks against Jews in Europe are accompanied by ever increasing official hostility towards Israel on the part of European governments. On the second day of the war with Hizbullah Chirac felt comfortable alleging that "Israel's military offensive against Lebanon is totally disproportionate." Chirac then acidly asked, "Is destroying Lebanon the ultimate goal?"
Chirac's remarks opened the floodgates of anti-Israel propaganda throughout Europe. They were followed by the barring of El Al cargo planes carrying weapons shipments from the US from landing in European airports. That prohibition still stands.
From the moment Chirac launched this unsubstantiated diplomatic assault against Israel, his government began acting as the agent of the Lebanese government, which itself was acting throughout the war as Hizbullah's mouthpiece. So from the second day of the war, the groundwork had already been laid for UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which treats Israel and Hizbullah as equals and lets both Syria and Iran off the hook for their central roles in Hizbullah's illegal war against Israel.
Through their behavior towards both Israel and the US, Europe's leaders have made clear that they will do just about anything to please the Muslim world. Even though Iran has made absolutely clear that it refuses to end its uranium enrichment activities, or even suspend them, the Europeans continue to insist on negotiating with the mullahs and refuse to take even the smallest concrete step against Iran in the UN Security Council. As to the Palestinians, the Europeans have made no attempt to hide their eagerness to renew their monthly transfers of tens of millions of euros to the Palestinian Authority in the wake of Hamas's agreement to let Fatah join its jihadist government. And in Lebanon, together with the UN, the Europeans have defined the rules of engagement for the UNIFIL forces in a manner that on the one hand protects Hizbullah, and on the other hand, prevents Israel from defending itself. Above and beyond all else, these policies show clearly that the Europeans have defined ingratiating the Muslim world as their primary geopolitical interest.
Seemingly unaware of Europe's growing hostility towards Israel, the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government has succumbed to the charms of the likes of Chirac, Romano Prodi and Javier Solana and is systematically abandoning Israel's positions in favor of Europe's pro-Arab stands. During his press conference with Tony Blair, Olmert renounced his previous well-considered demand that Cpl. Shalit be released before any meeting can take place between him and Abbas.
During her visit in Washington, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni emphasized Israel's wish to renew negotiations with the Palestinians on the basis of the Road Map and the government's continued support for Abbas. This, in spite of the fact that the government Abbas is forming with Hamas will not recognize Israel's right to exist and is committed to continuing the jihad against Israel. By so acting, Olmert and Livni are lending their informal approval to the renewal of European funding of the Palestinian Authority.
Even more troubling, is the government's inaction, bordering on tacit support for the radical Left's campaign to transfer responsibility for Israel's security from the IDF to Europe. The campaign, which New York Times columnist Tom Friedman enthusiastically dubbed "Land for NATO" in his column Wednesday, involves the adoption of the UNIFIL model in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. This newest messianic trend is based on the blind belief that Israel can continue giving land to the Palestinians in spite of the fact that the Palestinians are the most radical, pro-jihad society on the face of the earth, because Europe will protect Israel from them. Whether under the UN flag or the NATO flag, the new writ of leftist faith maintains that Europe can replace the IDF in defending the Jews.
Blair's stubborn refusal to acknowledge the simple fact that just as the Iranians will not cease uranium enrichment because they want to build atom bombs, so the Palestinians will reject all offers of statehood because they prefer to destroy the Jewish state is infuriating. And yet the fact remains that he is the last European leader who truly believes that Israel has an inherent right to exist and bases his policies on this belief. It is absolutely clear that in the coming years, Europe's hostility towards Israel and the Jewish people as a whole will continue to rise.
How then, is Israel to contend with Europe? As Israel's largest trading partner and export market, relations with Europe are vital to Israel's economic wellbeing. So it is clear that Israel cannot simply turn its back on the free world's Achilles heel.
At the same time, given Europe's hostility, it is similarly obvious that the direction of the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government's policies towards Europe must be reversed. Rather than enabling Europe to increase its influence in the region, Israel must take ever step possible to minimize Europe's foothold in its neighborhood.
Israel should use Blair's exit from the world stage as an opportunity to lock its doors and shutter its windows before any new European friends can enter.
Jewish World Review
09.17.2006
Immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, Blair was instrumental in convincing US President George W. Bush to view the Palestinian jihad against Israel as a conflict completely separate from the global jihad. His success in convincing Bush of this distinction turned the anti-Semitic - not to mention strategically disastrous — view that terrorists who kill Israelis should be treated differently from terrorists who kill anyone else, into one of the cognitive foundations of the US war on Islamic terror. This foundation was first enunciated at Bush's address Sept. 20 before the joint session of Congress where he identified "every terrorist with global reach" — that is every terrorist that isn't part of the Palestinian Authority — as enemies of the US.
Later, Blair was a principal force behind Bush's move to abandon the guidelines for dealing with the Palestinians that he enunciated in his speech on June 24, 2002. In that address, Bush stipulated that the Palestinians needed to transform themselves from a society that supported terror into one that combated terror in order to receive US support for Palestinian statehood. Shortly after the fall of Baghdad to Coalition forces in April 2003, Blair convinced Bush to accept the Road Map plan for Palestinian statehood. The Road Map, which effectively locks in US support for Palestinian statehood irrespective of Palestinian terrorism and radicalism, represented a practical abandonment of the positions that Bush set out in his June 24, 2002 address.
During his visit to the region this week, keeping with his studied habit, Blair ignored the fact that the Iranian-backed Hamas government was elected to lead the Palestinian Authority by a large majority of Palestinians. He ignored the fact that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's has voiced support for the abduction and continued captivity of IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit and for the continuation of the terror war against Israel. He ignored the fact that rather than working to overthrow the Hamas government, Abbas has begged Hamas to allow Fatah to join their government. To this end, Abbas has accepted Hamas's policy guidelines that reject recognizing Israel's right to exist and commit all Palestinians to unite in their war against Israel. Ignoring all these inconvenient facts, Blair called on the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government to renew negotiations with Abbas on the basis of the Road Map.
And yet, for all this, Tony Blair is Israel's best friend in Europe today. He is Israel's best friend because, as opposed to all his colleagues in both Britain and the EU, Blair at least recognizes that the global jihad is a threat to the free world and that the cost of not fighting the forces of jihad will be the loss of our freedom.
Soon Israel's closest European friend will exit the world stage after being effectively sacked by his own Labor party last week. British political commentators say that chances are slim that Blair will manage to hold the reins of power as a lame duck for the next twelve months as he pledged. More likely, he will leave 10 Downing Street in a matter of months.
The two men most likely to succeed Blair — Chancellor Gordon Brown and Tory leader David Cameron — will be more similar in their attitudes towards Israel and the US to French President Jacques Chirac than to Blair. This is the case first and foremost because that is what the British people expect of them.
British antipathy towards the US and Israel was clearly exposed in an opinion poll published on Sept. 6 in the Times of London. The poll showed that 73 percent of Britons believe that Blair's foreign policy, and especially his "support for the invasion of Iraq and refusal to demand an immediate cease-fire by Israel in the recent war against Hizbullah, has significantly increased the risk of terrorist attacks on Britain."
More than 62 percent said that to "reduce the risk of terrorist attacks on Britain, the government should change its foreign policy, in particular by distancing itself from America, being more critical of Israel and declaring a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq."
The day after the poll was published, Blair announced that he would leave office in a year. Also on Sept. 7, a committee of British Members of Parliament released a report on anti-Semitism in Britain. The all-party committee found that that since the Palestinian jihad against Israel began in 2000, anti-Semitism in Britain has become a mainstream phenomenon. Attacks against Jews in Britain were at an all time high over the summer.
In their anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, the British, of course, are no different from their Continental brethren. And the situation in Europe is alarming. Writing in Frontpage magazine this week, Islamic expert Andrew Boston reported that in November 2005, Stephen Steinlight, the former director of education at the US Holocaust Memorial Council told a conference in Washington that on average, Muslim attacks against Jews in Paris occur twelve time a day. According to Steinlight, with this frequency of attacks, French anti-Semitic violence is approaching the level of anti-Semitic violence in Germany during the days of the Weimar Republic.
These attacks against Jews in Europe are accompanied by ever increasing official hostility towards Israel on the part of European governments. On the second day of the war with Hizbullah Chirac felt comfortable alleging that "Israel's military offensive against Lebanon is totally disproportionate." Chirac then acidly asked, "Is destroying Lebanon the ultimate goal?"
Chirac's remarks opened the floodgates of anti-Israel propaganda throughout Europe. They were followed by the barring of El Al cargo planes carrying weapons shipments from the US from landing in European airports. That prohibition still stands.
From the moment Chirac launched this unsubstantiated diplomatic assault against Israel, his government began acting as the agent of the Lebanese government, which itself was acting throughout the war as Hizbullah's mouthpiece. So from the second day of the war, the groundwork had already been laid for UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which treats Israel and Hizbullah as equals and lets both Syria and Iran off the hook for their central roles in Hizbullah's illegal war against Israel.
Through their behavior towards both Israel and the US, Europe's leaders have made clear that they will do just about anything to please the Muslim world. Even though Iran has made absolutely clear that it refuses to end its uranium enrichment activities, or even suspend them, the Europeans continue to insist on negotiating with the mullahs and refuse to take even the smallest concrete step against Iran in the UN Security Council. As to the Palestinians, the Europeans have made no attempt to hide their eagerness to renew their monthly transfers of tens of millions of euros to the Palestinian Authority in the wake of Hamas's agreement to let Fatah join its jihadist government. And in Lebanon, together with the UN, the Europeans have defined the rules of engagement for the UNIFIL forces in a manner that on the one hand protects Hizbullah, and on the other hand, prevents Israel from defending itself. Above and beyond all else, these policies show clearly that the Europeans have defined ingratiating the Muslim world as their primary geopolitical interest.
Seemingly unaware of Europe's growing hostility towards Israel, the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government has succumbed to the charms of the likes of Chirac, Romano Prodi and Javier Solana and is systematically abandoning Israel's positions in favor of Europe's pro-Arab stands. During his press conference with Tony Blair, Olmert renounced his previous well-considered demand that Cpl. Shalit be released before any meeting can take place between him and Abbas.
During her visit in Washington, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni emphasized Israel's wish to renew negotiations with the Palestinians on the basis of the Road Map and the government's continued support for Abbas. This, in spite of the fact that the government Abbas is forming with Hamas will not recognize Israel's right to exist and is committed to continuing the jihad against Israel. By so acting, Olmert and Livni are lending their informal approval to the renewal of European funding of the Palestinian Authority.
Even more troubling, is the government's inaction, bordering on tacit support for the radical Left's campaign to transfer responsibility for Israel's security from the IDF to Europe. The campaign, which New York Times columnist Tom Friedman enthusiastically dubbed "Land for NATO" in his column Wednesday, involves the adoption of the UNIFIL model in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. This newest messianic trend is based on the blind belief that Israel can continue giving land to the Palestinians in spite of the fact that the Palestinians are the most radical, pro-jihad society on the face of the earth, because Europe will protect Israel from them. Whether under the UN flag or the NATO flag, the new writ of leftist faith maintains that Europe can replace the IDF in defending the Jews.
Blair's stubborn refusal to acknowledge the simple fact that just as the Iranians will not cease uranium enrichment because they want to build atom bombs, so the Palestinians will reject all offers of statehood because they prefer to destroy the Jewish state is infuriating. And yet the fact remains that he is the last European leader who truly believes that Israel has an inherent right to exist and bases his policies on this belief. It is absolutely clear that in the coming years, Europe's hostility towards Israel and the Jewish people as a whole will continue to rise.
How then, is Israel to contend with Europe? As Israel's largest trading partner and export market, relations with Europe are vital to Israel's economic wellbeing. So it is clear that Israel cannot simply turn its back on the free world's Achilles heel.
At the same time, given Europe's hostility, it is similarly obvious that the direction of the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government's policies towards Europe must be reversed. Rather than enabling Europe to increase its influence in the region, Israel must take ever step possible to minimize Europe's foothold in its neighborhood.
Israel should use Blair's exit from the world stage as an opportunity to lock its doors and shutter its windows before any new European friends can enter.
Jewish World Review
09.17.2006
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Messed Up are the Peacekeepers [Excerpts]
Architects of unsuccessful wars are rightly held responsible for their actions, as Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara were for the Vietnam War and as George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld may be for the Iraq war, but there is no comparable settling of accounts for those responsible for failed peace pacts.
Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung still has his 2000 Nobel
Peace Prize, notwithstanding North Korea's continuing development of nuclear weapons and missiles. Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres still has his 1994 prize despite the collapse of the Oslo accords. And United Nations peacekeeping forces still have their 1988 prize even though they have become better known for committing sex crimes than for keeping the peace. (The current fighting has exposed the ineffectuality of yet another set of blue helmets -- those deployed in southern Lebanon.)
Nowhere is the dismal record of peace processes clearer than in Israel's case. Over the years, the "international community" repeatedly has stepped in to prevent Israel from finishing off its enemies -- for instance, following its 1982, 1993 and 1996 incursions into Lebanon. Unrelenting pressure even led Israel in 2000 to leave Lebanon altogether. The result? Not peace, but a stronger, more dangerous adversary on Israel's border. The only real peace that Israel got, as a result of the 1978 Camp David accords, came after it had decisively defeated Egypt in two wars.
You would think that some lessons might be learned from this history. But no. Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, architect of the 1993 and 1996 Israeli pullouts, is demanding yet another cease-fire that will allow Hezbollah to keep holding Lebanon and Israel hostage. And he is joined in this demand by the great and the good across the world.
Samuel Johnson's famous epigram needs to be amended. In the 18th century, patriotism may have been the last refuge of the scoundrel. Today, it's peace activism
Boot, "Los Angeles Times," 8.02.2006
Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung still has his 2000 Nobel
Peace Prize, notwithstanding North Korea's continuing development of nuclear weapons and missiles. Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres still has his 1994 prize despite the collapse of the Oslo accords. And United Nations peacekeeping forces still have their 1988 prize even though they have become better known for committing sex crimes than for keeping the peace. (The current fighting has exposed the ineffectuality of yet another set of blue helmets -- those deployed in southern Lebanon.)
Nowhere is the dismal record of peace processes clearer than in Israel's case. Over the years, the "international community" repeatedly has stepped in to prevent Israel from finishing off its enemies -- for instance, following its 1982, 1993 and 1996 incursions into Lebanon. Unrelenting pressure even led Israel in 2000 to leave Lebanon altogether. The result? Not peace, but a stronger, more dangerous adversary on Israel's border. The only real peace that Israel got, as a result of the 1978 Camp David accords, came after it had decisively defeated Egypt in two wars.
You would think that some lessons might be learned from this history. But no. Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, architect of the 1993 and 1996 Israeli pullouts, is demanding yet another cease-fire that will allow Hezbollah to keep holding Lebanon and Israel hostage. And he is joined in this demand by the great and the good across the world.
Samuel Johnson's famous epigram needs to be amended. In the 18th century, patriotism may have been the last refuge of the scoundrel. Today, it's peace activism
Boot, "Los Angeles Times," 8.02.2006
Friday, September 15, 2006
The Distinction Between Israel and the Church
The Fourth Biblical Foundation upon which the pre-trib rapture is built is the fact that God has two peoples-Israel and the church. What do we mean by this distinction and how does it impact pretribulationism?
The Distinction Between Israel and the Church
"The New Testament consistently differentiates between Israel and the church," claims Arnold Fruchtenbaum.1 Fruchtenbaum supports this conclusion through a powerful twofold argument in which he first demonstrates the biblical view of Israel and secondly, by showing that the church is viewed in the New Testament as a separate entity.
Belief that God's single plan for history includes the two peoples of Israel and the church does not imply that there are thus different ways of salvation. When it comes to the issue of salvation there is only one way, since all peoples down through history descend from a single source-Adam. Christ's saving work is the only way of salvation for anyone, whether they are a member of Israel or the church.
Israel
Fruchtenbaum notes that "the term Israel is viewed theologically as referring to all descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, also known as Jews, the Jewish people, Israelites, Hebrews, etc." (113). He notes that national election distinguishes Israel from those peoples who were not chosen that we know as Gentiles (113-14). Fruchtenbaum outlines four reasons for Israel's election: 1) they were "chosen on the basis of God's love . . . to be 'a kingdom of priests and a holy nation' (Ex. 19:6) . . . to represent the Gentile nations before God." 2) "God chose Israel to be the recipient of His revelation and to record it (Deut. 4:5-8; 6:6-9; Rom. 3:1-2)." 3) Israel "was to propagate the doctrine of the One God (Deut. 6:4)." 4) Israel "was to produce the Messiah (Rom. 9:5; Heb. 2:16-17; 7:13-14) (115)."
No biblically oriented christian would deny these purposes relating to Israel. The differences begins to emerge when we consider Israel in relation to the church. "Some theologians insist," notes Fruchtenbaum "that at some point the church receives the promises given to Israel and thus become the 'New Israel' (known as replacement theology). Some believe the terms church and Israel are used virtually 'interchangeably,' most citing Galatians 6:16 and some Romans 9:6." (116).
However, those commonly known as dispensationalists interpret the Bible literally and thus do not confuse the terms Israel and the church, since there is no basis in the text of any biblical passage for supporting such an approach.
Having noted important aspects of the biblical use of Israel, I will now examine the nature of the church.
The Church
Six reasons are given by Fruchtenbaum from the Bible supporting the notion that the church is a distinct work in God's household from His people Israel.
1) "The first evidence is the fact that the church was born at Pentecost, whereas Israel had existed for many centuries" (116). This is supported by "the use of the future tense in Matthew 16:18 shows that it did not exist in gospel history" (116). Since the church born at Pentecost is called the "Body of Christ" (Col. 1:18), and entrance into the body is through "Spirit baptism" (1 Cor. 12:13), in which Jew and Gentile are united through the church. It is evident that the church began on the Day of Pentecost since Acts 1:5 views Spirit baptism as future, while Acts 10 links it to the past, specifically to Pentecost.
2) "The second evidence is that certain events in the ministry of the Messiah were essential to the establishment of the church-the church does not come into being until certain events have taken place" (117). These events include the resurrection and ascension of Jesus to become head of the church (Eph. 1:20-23). "The church, with believers as the body and Christ as the head, did not exist until after Christ ascended to become its head. And it could not become a functioning entity until after the Holy Spirit provided the necessary spiritual gifts (Eph. 4:7-11)" (117).
3) "The third evidence is the mystery character of the church (117)." A mystery in the Bible is a hidden truth not revealed until the New Testament (Eph. 3:3-5, 9; Col. 1:26-27). Fruchtenbaum lists "four defining characteristics of the church [that] are described as a mystery. (1) The body concept of Jewish and Gentile believers united into one body is designated as a mystery in Ephesians 3:1-12. (2) The doctrine of Christ indwelling every believer, the Christ-in-you concept, is called a mystery in Colossians 1:24-27 (cf. Col. 2:10-19; 3:4). (3) The church as the Bride of Christ is called a mystery in Ephesians 5:22-32. (4) The Rapture is called a mystery in 1 Corinthians 15:50-58. These four mysteries describe qualities that distinguish the church from Israel" (117-18).
4) "The fourth evidence that the church is distinct from Israel is the unique relationship between Jews and the Gentiles, called one new man in Ephesians 2:15" (118). During the current church age God is saving a remnant from the two previous entities (Israel and Gentiles) and combining them into a third new object-the church. This unity of Jews and Gentiles into one new man covers only the church age, from Pentecost until the rapture, after which time God will restore Israel and complete her destiny (Acts 15:14-18). 1 Corinthians 10:32 reflects just such a division when it says, "Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God."
5) "The fifth evidence for the distinction between Israel and the church is found in Galatians 6:16" (118). "It appears logical to view 'the Israel of God' (Gal. 6:16) as believing Jews in contrast to unbelieving Jews called 'Israel after the flesh' (1 Cor. 10:18)" (124).2 This passage does not support the false claim of replacement theologians who claim that Israel is supplanted by the Church. Instead, the Bible teaches that a remnant of Israel is combined with elect Gentiles during this age to make up a whole new entity the New Testament calls the church (Eph. 2).
Replacement theology tries to teach that because Gentiles believers are described as the "seed of Abraham" (Gal. 3:29) that this is equivalent to saying that they are Israel. This is clearly not the case. Paul's description of Gentile believers in Galatians 3:29 simply means that they participate in the spiritual (i.e., salvation) blessings that come through Israel (Rom. 15:27; 1 Cor. 9:11, 14). "Those who are the spiritual seed are partakers of Jewish spiritual blessings but are never said to become partakers of the physical, material, or national promises" (126). Therefore, Israel's national promises are left in tact awaiting a yet future fulfillment.
6) "In the book of Acts, both Israel and the church exist simultaneously. The term Israel is used twenty time and ekklesia (church) nineteen times, yet the two groups are always kept distinct" (118).3 Thus, the replacement theologian has no actual biblical basis upon which he bases his theological claim that Israel and the church have become one.
The Significance of the Distinction
If Israel and the church are not distinguished then there is no basis for seeing a future for Israel or for the church, as a new and unique people of God. If Israel and the church are merged into a single program, then the Old Testament promises for Israel will never be fulfilled and are usually seen by replacement theologians as spiritually fulfilled by the church. The merging of Israel's destiny into the church not only makes into one what the Scriptures understand as two, it removes a need for future restoration of God's original elect people in order to fulfill literally His promise that they will one day be the head and not the tail (Deut. 28:13).
The more that the believer sees a distinct plan for Israel and a distinct plan for the church, the more they realize that when the New Testament speaks to the church it is describing a separate destiny and hope for her. The church becomes more distinct in the plan of God. Israel's future includes the seven-year tribulation and then shortly before Christ's return to Jerusalem she will be converted to Jesus as her Messiah as the veil is removed and then she looks upon the one Who was pierced and is converted. On the other hand, the distinct hope (the rapture before the 70th week of Daniel) for the church is Christ's any-moment return.
Thus, a distinction between Israel and the church, as taught in the Bible, provides a basis of support for the pre-trib rapture. Those who merge the two programs cannot logically support the biblical arguments for the pre-trib position. By Thomas Ice
ENDNOTES
1 Fruchtenbaum, "Israel and the Church" in Wesley Willis, John Master, and Charles Ryrie, ed., Issues in Dispensationalism (Chicago: Moody Press, 1994), 129. This article by Fruchtenbaum is a highly regarded defense of the Bible's distinction between Israel and the church and should be read by all interacting with this subject. The remaining citations of Fruchtenbaum's article will appear in brackets after a quotation in the rest of this essay.
2 For an extensive and convincing treatment of Galatians 6:16 see Fruchtenbaum's article, 120-26.
3 Fruchtenbaum lists all 73 times Israel is used in the New Testament and demonstrates that Israel always is used to refer to ethnic Jews and never is used of the church (118-20). For an exhaustive and definitive study of the word for church and how it is never merged with Israel in the New Testament, see Earl Radmacher, What the Church is All About (Chicago: Moody Press, 1972), 366-84, 389-93.
The Distinction Between Israel and the Church
"The New Testament consistently differentiates between Israel and the church," claims Arnold Fruchtenbaum.1 Fruchtenbaum supports this conclusion through a powerful twofold argument in which he first demonstrates the biblical view of Israel and secondly, by showing that the church is viewed in the New Testament as a separate entity.
Belief that God's single plan for history includes the two peoples of Israel and the church does not imply that there are thus different ways of salvation. When it comes to the issue of salvation there is only one way, since all peoples down through history descend from a single source-Adam. Christ's saving work is the only way of salvation for anyone, whether they are a member of Israel or the church.
Israel
Fruchtenbaum notes that "the term Israel is viewed theologically as referring to all descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, also known as Jews, the Jewish people, Israelites, Hebrews, etc." (113). He notes that national election distinguishes Israel from those peoples who were not chosen that we know as Gentiles (113-14). Fruchtenbaum outlines four reasons for Israel's election: 1) they were "chosen on the basis of God's love . . . to be 'a kingdom of priests and a holy nation' (Ex. 19:6) . . . to represent the Gentile nations before God." 2) "God chose Israel to be the recipient of His revelation and to record it (Deut. 4:5-8; 6:6-9; Rom. 3:1-2)." 3) Israel "was to propagate the doctrine of the One God (Deut. 6:4)." 4) Israel "was to produce the Messiah (Rom. 9:5; Heb. 2:16-17; 7:13-14) (115)."
No biblically oriented christian would deny these purposes relating to Israel. The differences begins to emerge when we consider Israel in relation to the church. "Some theologians insist," notes Fruchtenbaum "that at some point the church receives the promises given to Israel and thus become the 'New Israel' (known as replacement theology). Some believe the terms church and Israel are used virtually 'interchangeably,' most citing Galatians 6:16 and some Romans 9:6." (116).
However, those commonly known as dispensationalists interpret the Bible literally and thus do not confuse the terms Israel and the church, since there is no basis in the text of any biblical passage for supporting such an approach.
Having noted important aspects of the biblical use of Israel, I will now examine the nature of the church.
The Church
Six reasons are given by Fruchtenbaum from the Bible supporting the notion that the church is a distinct work in God's household from His people Israel.
1) "The first evidence is the fact that the church was born at Pentecost, whereas Israel had existed for many centuries" (116). This is supported by "the use of the future tense in Matthew 16:18 shows that it did not exist in gospel history" (116). Since the church born at Pentecost is called the "Body of Christ" (Col. 1:18), and entrance into the body is through "Spirit baptism" (1 Cor. 12:13), in which Jew and Gentile are united through the church. It is evident that the church began on the Day of Pentecost since Acts 1:5 views Spirit baptism as future, while Acts 10 links it to the past, specifically to Pentecost.
2) "The second evidence is that certain events in the ministry of the Messiah were essential to the establishment of the church-the church does not come into being until certain events have taken place" (117). These events include the resurrection and ascension of Jesus to become head of the church (Eph. 1:20-23). "The church, with believers as the body and Christ as the head, did not exist until after Christ ascended to become its head. And it could not become a functioning entity until after the Holy Spirit provided the necessary spiritual gifts (Eph. 4:7-11)" (117).
3) "The third evidence is the mystery character of the church (117)." A mystery in the Bible is a hidden truth not revealed until the New Testament (Eph. 3:3-5, 9; Col. 1:26-27). Fruchtenbaum lists "four defining characteristics of the church [that] are described as a mystery. (1) The body concept of Jewish and Gentile believers united into one body is designated as a mystery in Ephesians 3:1-12. (2) The doctrine of Christ indwelling every believer, the Christ-in-you concept, is called a mystery in Colossians 1:24-27 (cf. Col. 2:10-19; 3:4). (3) The church as the Bride of Christ is called a mystery in Ephesians 5:22-32. (4) The Rapture is called a mystery in 1 Corinthians 15:50-58. These four mysteries describe qualities that distinguish the church from Israel" (117-18).
4) "The fourth evidence that the church is distinct from Israel is the unique relationship between Jews and the Gentiles, called one new man in Ephesians 2:15" (118). During the current church age God is saving a remnant from the two previous entities (Israel and Gentiles) and combining them into a third new object-the church. This unity of Jews and Gentiles into one new man covers only the church age, from Pentecost until the rapture, after which time God will restore Israel and complete her destiny (Acts 15:14-18). 1 Corinthians 10:32 reflects just such a division when it says, "Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God."
5) "The fifth evidence for the distinction between Israel and the church is found in Galatians 6:16" (118). "It appears logical to view 'the Israel of God' (Gal. 6:16) as believing Jews in contrast to unbelieving Jews called 'Israel after the flesh' (1 Cor. 10:18)" (124).2 This passage does not support the false claim of replacement theologians who claim that Israel is supplanted by the Church. Instead, the Bible teaches that a remnant of Israel is combined with elect Gentiles during this age to make up a whole new entity the New Testament calls the church (Eph. 2).
Replacement theology tries to teach that because Gentiles believers are described as the "seed of Abraham" (Gal. 3:29) that this is equivalent to saying that they are Israel. This is clearly not the case. Paul's description of Gentile believers in Galatians 3:29 simply means that they participate in the spiritual (i.e., salvation) blessings that come through Israel (Rom. 15:27; 1 Cor. 9:11, 14). "Those who are the spiritual seed are partakers of Jewish spiritual blessings but are never said to become partakers of the physical, material, or national promises" (126). Therefore, Israel's national promises are left in tact awaiting a yet future fulfillment.
6) "In the book of Acts, both Israel and the church exist simultaneously. The term Israel is used twenty time and ekklesia (church) nineteen times, yet the two groups are always kept distinct" (118).3 Thus, the replacement theologian has no actual biblical basis upon which he bases his theological claim that Israel and the church have become one.
The Significance of the Distinction
If Israel and the church are not distinguished then there is no basis for seeing a future for Israel or for the church, as a new and unique people of God. If Israel and the church are merged into a single program, then the Old Testament promises for Israel will never be fulfilled and are usually seen by replacement theologians as spiritually fulfilled by the church. The merging of Israel's destiny into the church not only makes into one what the Scriptures understand as two, it removes a need for future restoration of God's original elect people in order to fulfill literally His promise that they will one day be the head and not the tail (Deut. 28:13).
The more that the believer sees a distinct plan for Israel and a distinct plan for the church, the more they realize that when the New Testament speaks to the church it is describing a separate destiny and hope for her. The church becomes more distinct in the plan of God. Israel's future includes the seven-year tribulation and then shortly before Christ's return to Jerusalem she will be converted to Jesus as her Messiah as the veil is removed and then she looks upon the one Who was pierced and is converted. On the other hand, the distinct hope (the rapture before the 70th week of Daniel) for the church is Christ's any-moment return.
Thus, a distinction between Israel and the church, as taught in the Bible, provides a basis of support for the pre-trib rapture. Those who merge the two programs cannot logically support the biblical arguments for the pre-trib position. By Thomas Ice
ENDNOTES
1 Fruchtenbaum, "Israel and the Church" in Wesley Willis, John Master, and Charles Ryrie, ed., Issues in Dispensationalism (Chicago: Moody Press, 1994), 129. This article by Fruchtenbaum is a highly regarded defense of the Bible's distinction between Israel and the church and should be read by all interacting with this subject. The remaining citations of Fruchtenbaum's article will appear in brackets after a quotation in the rest of this essay.
2 For an extensive and convincing treatment of Galatians 6:16 see Fruchtenbaum's article, 120-26.
3 Fruchtenbaum lists all 73 times Israel is used in the New Testament and demonstrates that Israel always is used to refer to ethnic Jews and never is used of the church (118-20). For an exhaustive and definitive study of the word for church and how it is never merged with Israel in the New Testament, see Earl Radmacher, What the Church is All About (Chicago: Moody Press, 1972), 366-84, 389-93.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Ethiopian 'Aliya' To Remain At 300 A Month
The rate of Ethiopian aliya will not be cut as proposed by the Treasury, but will remain at 300 people a month, according to sources close to the issue.
The government will work out the financial details necessary to finalize the decision on Thursday, a highly-placed source told The Jerusalem Post. Others sources have said that there would first be an interministerial meeting on the subject before the budget is officially presented to the Knesset, but not until next week at the earliest.
The draft budget, which was approved by the cabinet Tuesday night, isn't expected to reach the legislature until after the High Holy Days.
As the budget deliberations were going on Tuesday, some 3,000 Ethiopian immigrants marched, chanted and otherwise pleaded for the government to cancel the cut, which would have reduced the number of those coming to 150 each month.
The protesters had threatened to camp out overnight and then commence a hunger strike, but agreed to return home at 10 p.m., when they were told that the government had postponed a decision on the cut and would be reevaluating the issue.
Activist Avraham Neguise said, however, that the community was far from satisfied at hearing that the change wouldn't be instituted. He said he still hadn't received official notification that the cut wouldn't be made, and added that the community was still upset that a 2005 cabinet decision to raise the number to 600 per month hadn't been implemented, not to mention previous commitments to bring the Jews remaining in Ethiopia here immediately.
"We hope this discriminatory policy will change, and we will not give up our struggle until the last Ethiopian Jews reach Israel," said Neguise, who heads a group advocating that all of the 13,000 to 18,000 Falash Mura in Ethiopia to be brought to Israel.
The Falash Mura are Ethiopians who converted to Christianity under duress and have returned to Judaism. The are brought in under the more restricted Law of Entry rather than the Law of Return, which offers citizenship to all Jews.
North American Jewry has also pushed for the Falash Mura to be brought to Israel quickly, and its leaders expressed outrage when the proposed cut was announced. The United Jewish Communities opened a $100 million fund-raising campaign to help absorb Ethiopian immigrants following the 2005 decision.
Several cabinet ministers also objected to the cut, presented as part of necessary budget trimming following the war against Hizbullah. Absorption Minister Ze'ev Boim, Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, all from Kadima; Culture and Sport Minister Ophir Paz-Pines of Labor; and Trade, Labor and Industry Minister Eli Yishai of Shas were all said to be pushing to prevent the cut.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisen, said he was addressing the issue.
"We feel very strongly the pain of the families and understand the importance of the centrality of the State of Israel to the people who want to come here," she said. "We're trying to address it, not as a budget [issue], but as something that's at the essence of the State of Israel."
Jerusalem Post
09.14.2006
The government will work out the financial details necessary to finalize the decision on Thursday, a highly-placed source told The Jerusalem Post. Others sources have said that there would first be an interministerial meeting on the subject before the budget is officially presented to the Knesset, but not until next week at the earliest.
The draft budget, which was approved by the cabinet Tuesday night, isn't expected to reach the legislature until after the High Holy Days.
As the budget deliberations were going on Tuesday, some 3,000 Ethiopian immigrants marched, chanted and otherwise pleaded for the government to cancel the cut, which would have reduced the number of those coming to 150 each month.
The protesters had threatened to camp out overnight and then commence a hunger strike, but agreed to return home at 10 p.m., when they were told that the government had postponed a decision on the cut and would be reevaluating the issue.
Activist Avraham Neguise said, however, that the community was far from satisfied at hearing that the change wouldn't be instituted. He said he still hadn't received official notification that the cut wouldn't be made, and added that the community was still upset that a 2005 cabinet decision to raise the number to 600 per month hadn't been implemented, not to mention previous commitments to bring the Jews remaining in Ethiopia here immediately.
"We hope this discriminatory policy will change, and we will not give up our struggle until the last Ethiopian Jews reach Israel," said Neguise, who heads a group advocating that all of the 13,000 to 18,000 Falash Mura in Ethiopia to be brought to Israel.
The Falash Mura are Ethiopians who converted to Christianity under duress and have returned to Judaism. The are brought in under the more restricted Law of Entry rather than the Law of Return, which offers citizenship to all Jews.
North American Jewry has also pushed for the Falash Mura to be brought to Israel quickly, and its leaders expressed outrage when the proposed cut was announced. The United Jewish Communities opened a $100 million fund-raising campaign to help absorb Ethiopian immigrants following the 2005 decision.
Several cabinet ministers also objected to the cut, presented as part of necessary budget trimming following the war against Hizbullah. Absorption Minister Ze'ev Boim, Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, all from Kadima; Culture and Sport Minister Ophir Paz-Pines of Labor; and Trade, Labor and Industry Minister Eli Yishai of Shas were all said to be pushing to prevent the cut.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisen, said he was addressing the issue.
"We feel very strongly the pain of the families and understand the importance of the centrality of the State of Israel to the people who want to come here," she said. "We're trying to address it, not as a budget [issue], but as something that's at the essence of the State of Israel."
Jerusalem Post
09.14.2006
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Israel's Galilee - World's First Pomegranate Wine
If you've been to the supermarket lately, you've probably noticed that the hottest trend in the food industry is pomegranate products.
Several years before the trend got started, a family in Israel's Upper Galilee region began working to create a tastier and healthier version of the ancient fruit, only to cross their way into yet another huge food market. Their product: the world's first pomegranate wine fit to be sold to international wine connoisseurs.
The story began ten years ago, when father and son Gaby and Avi Nachmias, the third generation of a farming family who were founding members of Moshav Kerem Ben Zimra in the Galilee, began experimenting to create a new strain of pomegranates. Understanding the fruit's excellent therapeutic qualities, their goal was to engineer a "super fruit" that would be richer in vitamins and antioxidants, sweeter, and deeper in its red color than most pomegranate types.
By 2003, after several years of growing their new strain successfully, the family tried making 2,000 bottles of pomegranate dessert wine from their crop. Everyone who tasted it loved it, the family says, and they built a production line the following year to produce dry and dessert wines in commercial quantities.
That batch was also well received, and the following year the family founded the Rimon Winery, named after the Hebrew word for pomegranate, and began producing en masse and for the local and international markets.
"In general, pomegranates don't have enough natural sugar to ferment into alcohol on its own," Leo Open, Rimon's director of international marketing, told ISRAEL21c. "In the past, some people have added alcohol to pomegranate juice to create a form of liquor, but no one has successfully made wine. Our pomegranates are the only ones in the world that have enough sugar to do so naturally."
Rimon's orchards also benefit from ideal pomegranate-growing terrain, on a plain of basalt-rich soil high above sea level, just a short distance from the Lebanese border. Starting this year, the company began featuring a product line that includes a dry wine, a dessert wine, a heavier port wine with 19% alcoholic content, and a rosé wine.
The family also produces pomegranate vinegar and a line of cosmetics made with oils extracted from the fruit. The winery's main task for now is building sales, with a strong emphasis on overseas exports.
"Earlier this year, we started exporting to the Far East in Asia, and we are now in touch with people in US, Europe, and even South America. Getting a product known is a slow process, and there is plenty of bureaucracy, and a long supply chain of importers and distributors to contend with," Open says.
"We're in the very first stages, but things are moving. We expect to be available in US markets before the end of the year."
The progress occurred despite the Israel-Hizbullah war, which saw missiles landing near the family's orchard every day. Open says the company wasn't too concerned that an attack could destroy its orchard.
"We were committed to getting through this and moving forward," he says. "The situation was tough for all businesses in the North, but we continued to make contact with distributors."
Pomegranates are one of Israel's oldest indigenous fruit species, and were mentioned in the Bible's praises of the land 3,500 years ago. The fruit has a strong place in Jewish tradition, and many have the custom of eating pomegranates on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.
The fruit also features prominently in ancient Greek mythology, and are commonly eaten at Greek weddings and funerals. Nowadays, the sweet and tart pomegranate has become one of the fastest growing trends in the food industry.
According to product data service Productscan, some 215 new pomegranate-flavored foods and beverages were brought to market in the first seven months of 2006, compared to
just 19 for the whole of 2002. Pomegranate flavors are finding their way to everything from natural fruit juices to chewing gum and even sausages.
The rise in popularity stems partly from growing medical
interest in the crimson fruit's health benefits. Pomegranates are
naturally high in polyphenols, powerful antioxidants that are helpful in fighting a variety of health problems ranging from cardiovascular diseases and inflammation to certain types of cancer.
Studies have even begun suggesting that the fruit may even be helpful in alleviating menopausal and post-menopausal symptoms in women (pomegranate is the only plant known to contain estrogen) and erectile dysfunction in men. Couple that with their naturally-high levels of vitamins A, B, and C, calcium, and iron, and it's no wonder the fruit is being touted as a health panacea.
And, Open notes, the antioxidant content of pomegranates is three times higher than that of red grapes.
Rimon Wineries stands to grab the coattails of the surge in international wine sales. That market has been growing strongly since the early 1990s, and Israeli wines in particular have been undergoing a 'revolution' in recent years.
Both local consumption and exports of Israeli-made wines are growing at more than 10% a year, while the rise of quality boutique wineries around the country is helping to
increasing international recognition. Pomegranate wine, which is kosher for consumption by religious Jews with none of the rabbinic stringencies of grape wines, looks to fit nicely into this niche.
The process of making pomegranate wine is similar to that of most grape wines. The winery gathers the fruit's juices into large steel tanks to ferment for about a month, and then ages them in the same types of French oak barrels used by most wine producers before the product is bottled and sold. The only point where the pomegranates need special treatment is at the beginning of production, when a specially-designed machine opens the fruits and scoops out its edible seeds, crushing them for their juice.
"Like with all wines, the fermentation process is totally natural," Open says.
That being said, pomegranate wines clearly belong to a different class than the typical reds and whites, and Rimon recognizes that the market has to treat it as such, Open says.
"We consider it a fruit wine, definitely not a liqueur, and it has to be appreciated in this way."
He adds, however, that feedback has been very good from wine experts," especially in North America.
In Israel, Rimon wines cost about the same as most fine wines, at $15.50-24.50 per bottle. Distribution costs will certainly cause a price markup when they hit US shops, but Open declines to give a price range.
In any case, Rimon shouldn't have to worry about competition for many years. "We spent a long time developing this wine," Open says. "It will be very difficult for anyone else to try to imitate it."
Israel 21st Century
09.13.2006
Several years before the trend got started, a family in Israel's Upper Galilee region began working to create a tastier and healthier version of the ancient fruit, only to cross their way into yet another huge food market. Their product: the world's first pomegranate wine fit to be sold to international wine connoisseurs.
The story began ten years ago, when father and son Gaby and Avi Nachmias, the third generation of a farming family who were founding members of Moshav Kerem Ben Zimra in the Galilee, began experimenting to create a new strain of pomegranates. Understanding the fruit's excellent therapeutic qualities, their goal was to engineer a "super fruit" that would be richer in vitamins and antioxidants, sweeter, and deeper in its red color than most pomegranate types.
By 2003, after several years of growing their new strain successfully, the family tried making 2,000 bottles of pomegranate dessert wine from their crop. Everyone who tasted it loved it, the family says, and they built a production line the following year to produce dry and dessert wines in commercial quantities.
That batch was also well received, and the following year the family founded the Rimon Winery, named after the Hebrew word for pomegranate, and began producing en masse and for the local and international markets.
"In general, pomegranates don't have enough natural sugar to ferment into alcohol on its own," Leo Open, Rimon's director of international marketing, told ISRAEL21c. "In the past, some people have added alcohol to pomegranate juice to create a form of liquor, but no one has successfully made wine. Our pomegranates are the only ones in the world that have enough sugar to do so naturally."
Rimon's orchards also benefit from ideal pomegranate-growing terrain, on a plain of basalt-rich soil high above sea level, just a short distance from the Lebanese border. Starting this year, the company began featuring a product line that includes a dry wine, a dessert wine, a heavier port wine with 19% alcoholic content, and a rosé wine.
The family also produces pomegranate vinegar and a line of cosmetics made with oils extracted from the fruit. The winery's main task for now is building sales, with a strong emphasis on overseas exports.
"Earlier this year, we started exporting to the Far East in Asia, and we are now in touch with people in US, Europe, and even South America. Getting a product known is a slow process, and there is plenty of bureaucracy, and a long supply chain of importers and distributors to contend with," Open says.
"We're in the very first stages, but things are moving. We expect to be available in US markets before the end of the year."
The progress occurred despite the Israel-Hizbullah war, which saw missiles landing near the family's orchard every day. Open says the company wasn't too concerned that an attack could destroy its orchard.
"We were committed to getting through this and moving forward," he says. "The situation was tough for all businesses in the North, but we continued to make contact with distributors."
Pomegranates are one of Israel's oldest indigenous fruit species, and were mentioned in the Bible's praises of the land 3,500 years ago. The fruit has a strong place in Jewish tradition, and many have the custom of eating pomegranates on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.
The fruit also features prominently in ancient Greek mythology, and are commonly eaten at Greek weddings and funerals. Nowadays, the sweet and tart pomegranate has become one of the fastest growing trends in the food industry.
According to product data service Productscan, some 215 new pomegranate-flavored foods and beverages were brought to market in the first seven months of 2006, compared to
just 19 for the whole of 2002. Pomegranate flavors are finding their way to everything from natural fruit juices to chewing gum and even sausages.
The rise in popularity stems partly from growing medical
interest in the crimson fruit's health benefits. Pomegranates are
naturally high in polyphenols, powerful antioxidants that are helpful in fighting a variety of health problems ranging from cardiovascular diseases and inflammation to certain types of cancer.
Studies have even begun suggesting that the fruit may even be helpful in alleviating menopausal and post-menopausal symptoms in women (pomegranate is the only plant known to contain estrogen) and erectile dysfunction in men. Couple that with their naturally-high levels of vitamins A, B, and C, calcium, and iron, and it's no wonder the fruit is being touted as a health panacea.
And, Open notes, the antioxidant content of pomegranates is three times higher than that of red grapes.
Rimon Wineries stands to grab the coattails of the surge in international wine sales. That market has been growing strongly since the early 1990s, and Israeli wines in particular have been undergoing a 'revolution' in recent years.
Both local consumption and exports of Israeli-made wines are growing at more than 10% a year, while the rise of quality boutique wineries around the country is helping to
increasing international recognition. Pomegranate wine, which is kosher for consumption by religious Jews with none of the rabbinic stringencies of grape wines, looks to fit nicely into this niche.
The process of making pomegranate wine is similar to that of most grape wines. The winery gathers the fruit's juices into large steel tanks to ferment for about a month, and then ages them in the same types of French oak barrels used by most wine producers before the product is bottled and sold. The only point where the pomegranates need special treatment is at the beginning of production, when a specially-designed machine opens the fruits and scoops out its edible seeds, crushing them for their juice.
"Like with all wines, the fermentation process is totally natural," Open says.
That being said, pomegranate wines clearly belong to a different class than the typical reds and whites, and Rimon recognizes that the market has to treat it as such, Open says.
"We consider it a fruit wine, definitely not a liqueur, and it has to be appreciated in this way."
He adds, however, that feedback has been very good from wine experts," especially in North America.
In Israel, Rimon wines cost about the same as most fine wines, at $15.50-24.50 per bottle. Distribution costs will certainly cause a price markup when they hit US shops, but Open declines to give a price range.
In any case, Rimon shouldn't have to worry about competition for many years. "We spent a long time developing this wine," Open says. "It will be very difficult for anyone else to try to imitate it."
Israel 21st Century
09.13.2006
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