The review was by: John Gellner, editor of Canadian Defence Quarterly

my mistake

Pipes was on Washington Journal this morning.

He was flamed by a caller, using similar rhetoric to what others use here. That caller complained that Pipes was a "zionist" and opposed to David Irving, who lost a libel lawsuit in England about whether the Holocaust really happened.

Maybe Irving is more your cup of tea.

I guess Irving isn't considered a zealot and idealogue now that democrats have decided to toss the Jews in their party overboard.

I notice that though the poll has a lack of participation as compared to the Christmas poll most people realize Israel giving up land isn't likely to give them peace.

not even close

Another point of view

Palestine Without Illusions

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 3, 2006; Page A19

Amid much gnashing of teeth, the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections is being called a disaster. On the contrary. It is deeply clarifying and ultimately cleansing. If the world responds correctly, it will mark a turning point for the better.

The Palestinian people have spoken. According to their apologists, sure, Hamas wants to destroy Israel, wage permanent war and send suicide bombers into discotheques to drive nails into the skulls of young Israelis, but what the Palestinians were really voting for was efficient garbage collection.

It is time to stop infantilizing the Palestinians. As Hamas leader Khaled Meshal said at a news conference four days after the election, "The Palestinian people have chosen Hamas with its known stances." By a landslide, the Palestinian people have chosen these known stances: rejectionism, Islamism, terrorism, rank anti-Semitism and the destruction of Israel in a romance of blood, death and revolution. Garbage collection on Wednesdays.

Everyone is lamenting the fall of Fatah and the marginalization of its leader, Mahmoud Abbas. This is ridiculous. The election exposed what everyone knew and would not admit: Abbas has no constituency. Would it have been better to keep funneling billions of dollars from the European Union and a gullible United States to the thoroughly corrupt administration of a hapless figurehead? Billions that either end up in Swiss bank accounts or subsidize countless gangs of young men carrying guns?

The current nostalgia for Fatah moderation is absurd. What moderation? Yasser Arafat's 1993 paper recognition of Israel's right to exist was as fraudulent as his famous Oslo side letter renouncing terrorism. He spent the next seven years clandestinely sponsoring it, then openly launched a four-year terrorist war, the most vicious in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

With this election, we can no longer hide from the truth: After 60 years, the Palestinian people continue to reject the right of a Jewish state to exist side by side with them. Fatah -- secular, worldly and wise -- learned to lie to the West and pretend otherwise. Hamas -- less sophisticated, more literal and more bound by religious obligation to expel the Jews -- is simply more honest.

This election was truth in advertising. Now we know. What to do?

The world must impress upon the Palestinians that there are consequences for their choices. And so long as they choose rejectionism -- the source of a 60-year conflict the Israelis have long been ready to resolve -- the world will not continue to support and subsidize them.

And that means cutting off Hamas completely: no recognition, no negotiation, no aid, nothing. And not just assistance to a Hamas government but all assistance. The Bush administration suggests continuing financial support for "humanitarian" services. This is a serious mistake.

First, because money is fungible. Every dollar we spend for Palestinian social services is a dollar freed up for a Hamas government to purchase rockets, guns and suicide belts for the "Palestinian army" that Meshal has already declared he intends to build.

Second, because it sends the Palestinians precisely the wrong message. If they were under a dictatorship that imposed rejectionism on them, there would be a case for helping a disenfranchised Palestinian people. But they just held the most open and honest exercise of democracy in Palestinian history. The Palestinian people chose. However much they love victimhood, they are not victims here. They are actors. And historical actors have to take responsibility.

They want blood and death and romance? They will get nothing. They choose peace and coexistence? Then, as President Bush pledged in June 2002, they will get everything: world recognition, financial assistance, their own state with independence and dignity.

In August 2001, Hamas sent a suicide bomber into a Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem. He killed 15 innocent Israelis, mutilating many dozens more. A month later, Hamas student activists at al-Najah University in Nablus celebrated the attack with an exhibit, a mockup of the smashed Sbarro shop strewn with blood and fake body parts -- a severed leg, still dressed in jeans; a human hand dangling from the ceiling. The inscription (with a reference to the Qassam military wing of Hamas) read: "Qassami Pizza is more delicious."

The correct term for such a mentality is not militancy, not extremism, but moral depravity. The world must advise the Palestinian people that if their national will is to embrace Hamas -- its methods and its madness -- then their national will is simply too murderous and, yes, too depraved for the world to countenance, let alone subsidize.

The essential first lesson of any newborn democracy is that national choices have national consequences. A Hamas-led Palestine, cut off entirely, will be forced to entertain second thoughts.

Kill them all.

Who do you want killed?

The bottom line.

And the dollar Hamas spends spreading terror aimed at Israel is a dollar freed up from other terrorist organizations that want to attack the US. (or Denmark and Germany)

That fact is so obvious that I can't believe everyone is not jumping on it!

JERUSALEM – In the largest rally here since Israel's Gaza withdrawal this past summer, upwards of 100,000 people gathered in Jerusalem's town center to protest the use of excessive force allegedly employed last week against protesters during the evacuation of Jewish homes in northern Samaria.

Yes it's correct, Olmert is bad for the Jews ... Olmert wants to shed Jewish blood and we won't let him. We'll remove him from office on election day," shouted Israeli nationalist lawmaker Uri Ariel while addressing the crowd.

Ariel, along with other prominent speakers, demanded the establishment of a special committee to investigate what he said was police brutality against hundreds of protesters during the demolition last Wednesday of nine Jewish homes in the West Bank town of Amona.

Olmert today rejected the call for an official inquiry, which was also voiced by Israeli President Moshe Katsav and multiple members of Knesset.





Last week, more than 1,500 Israeli Defense Force soldiers and Israeli police officers were called up to demolish the Amona homes after the court system ruled the houses were constructed without a permit.

The government said the homes could be rebuilt at a later date in the same community if the construction is coordinated with the Ministry of Defense. But Olmert ordered the demolitions be carried out immediately and instructed the military to use "all force necessary."

During the demolitions, horse-mounted police, water cannons and specially trained riot officers faced off against hundreds of protesters who massed in Amona in hopes of halting the efforts.





Israeli television broadcast live footage of demonstrators, including women and children, being dragged and beaten by soldiers. Teenagers with bloody noses and head wounds were seen being removed from the scene. Police were videotaped using batons and gas canisters to clear the area of demonstrators.

More than 300 protesters were treated in makeshift first aid tents. At least 70 were evacuated to Jerusalem hospitals with moderate-to-serious injuries.




Three Israeli nationalist lawmakers, Effie Eitam, Benny Elon and Aryeh Eldad were seriously wounded in the clashes. Eitam suffered a head injury after being pushed by soldiers. He was undergoing neurological tests in Jerusalem. Elon was injured after reportedly being pushed off a bulldozer by troops. Eldad sustained an arm fracture after being shoved to the ground by police.

"I promise you, the evening before the events in Amona, Olmert held consultations in which he ordered the police and the army to break our heads and our legs. He is the messenger, he and no other. A commission of inquiry is the only solution for the unity of the people. Olmert fears a commission of inquiry because it could put him in prison," protest organizer Pinchas Wallerstein of Israel's Yesha Settlers Council said at today's rally.

"The Amona evacuation was a horrid scene to watch on television," said protester Andrew Greenberg, who described himself to WND as an "extreme leftist and no friend of settlers."

"Any ordinary viewer could easily see the police were clearly brutalizing the protesters big time. It's unquestionable," Goldberg said.


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=48686

From PA's largest daily, Al Quds

The PA often uses imagery comparing Palestinians to Jesus, according to Palestinian Media Watch.

The figures are nailed to a cross back to back, with the Palestinian bearing the thought, "Brother from Iraq," and the Iraqi, "Relative from Palestine."

Which is more inflamatory?


Published in 2001, this cartoon from the Egyptian daily Al Ahram depicts an Arab being flattened as two Jews drink the blood.

or this one?

This cartoon, from the Syrian newspaper Al-Ahram (May 29, 2002), shows an anti-Semitic caricature of a Jew with a long beard and hooked nose, fuelling the “World Media” with “Zionist Media” propaganda, while in the background bombs are falling on the Moslem al-Aqsa shrine on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. This cartoon stereotypes Jews, repeats the anti-Semitic myth that the Jews control the world media, and adds the lie that the Israeli government has damaged the al-Aqsa complex on the Temple Mount.

Do you suppose they forgot about their standoff for 5 weeks in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem?

Above, another cartoon from the Internet site
of official Palestinian Authority cartoonist Omayya
Joha, showing alleged Jewish control (in the form
of snakes) of the United States. The snake was
often used to portray Jews in historic European
anti-Semitic images.

JEWS!!!

You are paying attention this time.... this is the Israel thread!

The Jerusalem Post

Jan. 23, 2006 0:24 | Updated Jan. 23, 2006 0:41
Hoenlein: Franklin sentence 'disturbing'
By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER


American Jewish leader Malcolm Hoenlein on Sunday blasted the sentence handed down two days earlier to the Pentagon analyst who admitted passing on classified information to Israeli diplomats and pro-Israel lobbyists.

Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, labeled the ruling "disturbing," a comment greeted by applause from the audience to whom he spoke about US-Israel relations at the Interdisciplinary Center's Herzliya Conference.

The former analyst, Larry Franklin, was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison for three counts of conspiring to communicate national defense information unlawfully. The sentence was part of a plea bargain between Franklin and the prosecution in which he agreed to testify against two staffers of the pro-Israel lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, whose trial begins in late April.

"The very fact that this kind of climate can exist in the capital of the United States is unacceptable," Hoenlein said of the sentencing as well as subtle anti-Semitism heard in the corridors of power.

He added, "[That] two patriotic American citizens who are working for Jewish organizations who did nothing to violate American security, should have to stand trial and be subject to the public scrutiny and public humiliation, frankly I find very disturbing and a matter that we all have to look at in a much more serious way."

Hoenlein also cautioned Israel about its attitude toward the Diaspora.

"There are more Jews in Tel Aviv than in New York and the majority of Jews will live here," he noted. "So there's no need to diminish the importance or the achievements of the Diaspora in order to emphasize the centrality and singular significance of Israel in all of our lives."

Hoenlein was preceded by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, who also had some words of criticism - of Diaspora Jewry.

He slammed Jewish leaders for making a "major strategic mistake" by criticizing growing ties between evangelical Christians and the State of Israel, arguing that evangelicals pose one of American Jewry's largest threats since their values are so different from that of American Jews.

"You don't need to accept their vision of America. But you don't need to make them the enemy," said Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. "It is the height of irresponsibility for American Jewish leaders to jeopardize the critical support for Israel and the fight against radical Islam and growing anti-Semitism that evangelicals bring to the table." Eckstein warned Israel not to take the support of evangelicals for granted.

He did, however, praise Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for understanding the importance of this constituency.

Another speaker at the same session, American pollster Frank Luntz, also heaped accolades on Olmert. Concluding a lecture on how to use language effectively to get Israel's message across - "it is not what you say that matters in communication; it's what people hear" - he said that the former Jerusalem mayor had mastered his advice.

He played a short video clip of Olmert defending Israeli policies in heavily accented English on international TV.

"This is absolutely perfect communication to Americans," said Luntz, who is a consultant to the Israeli advocacy organization, The Israel Project. He described the clip as "some of the best communication of any Israeli spokesperson. Thank God he is where he is right now."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

Christian group relocates to West Bank Christian in protest
Calling on Bible believers worldwide to oppose Israel's withdrawal

By Aaron Klein


JERUSALEM – A Christian organization here has decided to move its headquarters from Jerusalem to a West Bank community in protest of Israel's announced withdrawal from the area and is calling on Christians worldwide to help save the territory, which many refer to as Israel's "biblical heartland."




The move comes on the heels of Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's revelation yesterday his administration will seek to unilaterally pull out from most of the West Bank, including strategic areas many military analysts consider crucial for Israel's defense.

>

About 200,000 Jews live in the West Bank. The security fence, still under construction in certain areas, cordons off nearly 95 percent of the territory from Israel's pre-1967 borders. More than half the West Bank's Jewish residents reside on the side of the fence closest to Israel. About 80,000 more Jews live on the other side of the barrier.

Sharon this past summer withdrew entirely from the Gaza Strip.

Charged Van der Hoeven: "Is Olmert crazy? Israelis unilaterally withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 and created a Hezbollah terror zone in the south that continually attacks. Sharon withdrew from Gaza in August and now there is a Hamas-al-Qaida state bordering the Negev that resulted in the election of Hamas, the flying of rockets regularly from Gaza, and the moving into Gaza of all the areas terror groups ready to attack. Gaza is a terror refuge. Now Israel wants to withdraw from the West Bank and surround itself by essentially three terror states that do Iran's bidding?"

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=48739

The Palestinian Christians have been forced out by Muslim terrorists. Bethlehem used to have a lot of shops run by the Palestinian Christians for the tourists, but they had to leave because of the abuse they suffered daily. Some of the businesses are on-line or sell through E-Bay because it was no longer safe for them or their families to live there.

Israel knew Iraq had no WMD, says MP

Associated Press
Wednesday February 4, 2004
The Guardian

A prominent Israeli MP said yesterday that his country's intelligence services knew claims that Saddam Hussein was capable of swiftly launching weapons of mass destruction were wrong but withheld the information from Washington.

"It was known in Israel that the story that weapons of mass destruction could be activated in 45 minutes was an old wives' tale," Yossi Sarid, a member of the foreign affairs and defence committee which is investigating the quality of Israeli intelligence on Iraq, told the Associated Press yesterday.

"Israel didn't want to spoil President Bush's scenario, and it should have," he said.

Another member of the committee, Ehud Yatom, said Israel had told the Americans it believed the weapons existed but had not seen them.

On Sunday, the former UN weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, told Y-Net, an Israeli newswire, that the Israeli intelligence services reached the conclusion years ago that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction.

"In the end, if the Israeli intelligence knew that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, so the CIA knew it and thus British intelligence too" he said.

Another MP, Roman Bronfman, said if Mr Ritter was correct, it meant the government had misled the Israeli public in the run-up to the war when it ordered people to prepare sealed rooms and gas masks in preparation for a potential WMD attack.

However, questions over the quality of Israeli intelligence are unlikely to concern the public as greatly as in Britain and the US. Israelis overwhelmingly welcomed the overthrow of the Iraqi leader.

In November 2003, a respected Tel Aviv thinktank concluded that Israeli intelligence had joined the US and Britain in an "exaggerated assessment" of Iraqi weapons.

In 2002, the former head of the Mossad intelligence agency, Efraim Halevy, told a closed meeting of Nato that there were "clear indications" that Iraq had renewed its efforts to build WMD after the UN weapons inspections were halted in 1998. He also said Iraq had preserved elements of its ability to manufacture chemical and biological weapons.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2...1140459,00.html

Do ties to terror really matter?

By Jonathan Tobin

Jihad controversy at Brandeis puts Israel's Hamas dilemma in perspective


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It was bound to happen. As soon as Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections, "moderates"were discovered in their midst.


With the last shred of hope for a viable peace process with the Palestinians tossed into the trash can by a landslide election victory for Hamas, some true believers in the inevitability of peace are prepared to hold their noses and reach out to find someone in the new governing party to talk to.


But as much as those who seek to find Hamas' voices for peace are on a fool's errand, that won't mean that all ties with the Palestinians will be severed.


Given the complicated relationship between the Palestinian Authority and the State of Israel, it isn't going to be easy to place the entire machinery of the Palestinian Authority off-limits. But even if we accept the logic of such ties, exactly who among Hamas' cast of characters will be considered okay?

PROFILE OF A MODERATE
Far less earth shattering will be similar dilemmas of American Jews and their institutions that have invested so heavily in the notion of dialogue with the Palestinians. A recent controversy over the appointment of a Palestinian academic at Brandeis University speaks to this problem.


The man under fire at Brandeis is Khalil Shikaki, a leading Palestinian pollster who holds the title of senior fellow at the school's Crown Center for Middle East Studies, where he co-teaches a course on peacemaking. Considered an expert in his field, he is the source of some fascinating polling material about Palestinians. Just last month, he released data culled during the P.A. election that showed the majority of Palestinians still supported a two-state solution to the conflict and wanted co-existence with Israel despite the vote for Hamas.


In addition to the position at Brandeis — a university with strong ties to the Jewish community — Shikaki has become a regular speaker at a host of Israeli and American institutions. If any Palestinian is considered a moderate, it is Shikaki.


But recently, he has come under fire from the Zionist Organization of America, which called on Brandeis to sever its ties with the Palestinian and prompted calls of a boycott of donations to the school until they comply.


The knee-jerk response from much of the Jewish world has been outrage at the ZOA.


Brandeis President Yehuda Reinharz dismissed Shikaki's critics, calling their tactics "McCarthyism."


Americans for Peace Now rallied to Brandeis' defense and termed the case against Shikaki not merely "unsubstantiated accusations," as Reinharz had, but claimed the purpose of the campaign was a "right-wing" plot seeking to undermine moderates like Shikaki who have sought "common ground" with Israelis.


How dare ZOA, which placed itself out of the mainstream by opposing Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza last summer, question the bona fides of an academic so trusted by so many Jews?


But unfortunately for Shikaki and his friends, the accusations against the Palestinian stem from a Department of Justice investigation of Islamic Jihad in the United States, not a "right-wing" plot.


Evidence presented at the recent trial of Sami al-Arian, another Palestinian academic who operated the American wing of Islamic Jihad — a bloody terrorist group even more radical than Hamas — showed that Shikaki was up to his neck in terrorist ties in the late 1980s and early 1990s.


Prior to becoming the flavor of the month at Brandeis, Shikaki was the director of the World & Islam Studies Enterprise, a think tank set up at the University of South Florida by al-Arian, and which served as a front for Islamic Jihad to establish its support network in this country.

FRONT FOR TERROR
Shikaki, whose late brother Fathi was then the head of Islamic Jihad, was a part of the Islamic Jihad fundraising set-up in the United States. Transcripts of FBI wiretaps of Shikaki, al-Arian and their associates showed that Shikaki was responsible for distributing money in the West Bank under the guise of charitable activity and used Swiss bank accounts to launder funds raised in the United States. He claims they were for charities but at the trial of al-Arian, the government claimed the word "orphans" used in conversations between Shikaki and his confederates was a code word for Palestinian Islamic Jihad causes.


Whether the money was used to promote Islamic Jihad among the Palestinian population via charities that sought to promote their cause or to directly help terrorists who were killing Israelis and Americans, Shikaki's involvement with this group of murderers is clear. After the U.S. government officially designated Islamic Jihad as a terrorist organization in 1995, it appears that Shikaki distanced himself from them. Israeli forces subsequently killed his brother.


According to Steven Emerson, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Investigative Project, there's no question about Shikaki's involvement. Emerson, one of the leading experts on Islamist terror connections, says the Palestinian is not telling the truth when he denies involvement with Islamic Jihad — and that the FBI tapes and other evidence combine to make a compelling case that render Shikaki's explantions hard to believe.


"Shikaki was part of the creation of a terror network. He may be a moderate now, but he is trying to cover up his role in Islamic Jihad," states Emerson.


Peace Now and Reinharz seem to rest their defense of him on the fact that Shikaki was not himself a target for prosecution. The acquittal of al-Arian by a Florida jury that seemed as uninterested in the evidence as the O.J. Simpson jury gives them further cover. But proof of Shikaki's money laundering — and his relationship with al-Arian and others now coming to light — cannot be credibly denied.


The question is: What should it mean to us now?


Mort Klein, national president of the ZOA, believes Shikaki's role as a funder of murderers ought to render him untouchable by a Jewish institution such as Brandeis. Emerson won't say what he thinks Brandeis should do but insists that even if Shikaki is a moderate today he's lying about his past. Both say the least we ought to expect from him is to own up to what he did and apologize.


The support for Shikaki is apparently driven by a belief that his past is irrelevant. But how can we be expected to believe in his moderation — or scholarship — as long as he goes on lying about Islamic Jihad and asking his Jewish pals to back him up?


A few years ago, another famous school, the University of Notre Dame, fired a man it had just hired as head football coach because journalists uncovered the fact that he had lied on his resume. Unlike the way Brandeis reacted to revelations about Shikaki, Notre Dame acted fast, and George O'Leary was summarily dismissed.


How ironic that Brandeis, which 50 years ago had a brief fling at trying to create its own major college football team before discarding it to concentrate on academics, now seems to have a lower standard for its Middle East Studies department than its Catholic counterpart has for its football program.


Brandeis needs to do better. So do the rest of us who prefer to ignore the truth because of our desperate need to hold on to hope for the future.


If Shikaki or any other Palestinian believes in peace, then dialogue with them might be a good idea. But dialogue, whether with him or Hamas, cannot be built on lies. Nor can peace.

Great. I'm so glad to see that tolerance lefties are famous for finally being embraced by their Islamic friends.

You also saw the linkage... ha ha, I was going to make a similiar comment but decided to let the picture speak for itself and let them draw their own conclusions. ... (if possible)

Liar.

1. You misrepresent the meaning of liberal tolerance.

2. You call the Islamic radicals liberal's friends.

3. No liberal I have ever seen or talked to would advocate cutting off anyone's arms for any reason.

Unless it was Dick Cheney or Rush Limbaugh, right?

Wrong.

The dangers of pandering.




The Jesus Landing Pad
Bush White House checked with rapture Christians before latest Israel move

by Rick Perlstein
May 18th, 2004 10:00 AM



It was an e-mail we weren't meant to see. Not for our eyes were the notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that "the Presidents [sic] Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level"—this to a group whose representative in Israel believed herself to have been attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry Potter. Most of all, apparently, we're not supposed to know the National Security Council's top Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios.

But now we know.

"Everything that you're discussing is information you're not supposed to have," barked Pentecostal minister Robert G. Upton when asked about the off-the-record briefing his delegation received on March 25. Details of that meeting appear in a confidential memo signed by Upton and obtained by the Voice.

The e-mailed meeting summary reveals NSC Near East and North African Affairs director Elliott Abrams sitting down with the Apostolic Congress and massaging their theological concerns. Claiming to be "the Christian Voice in the Nation's Capital," the members vociferously oppose the idea of a Palestinian state. They fear an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza might enable just that, and they object on the grounds that all of Old Testament Israel belongs to the Jews. Until Israel is intact and Solomon's temple rebuilt, they believe, Christ won't come back to earth.

Abrams attempted to assuage their concerns by stating that "the Gaza Strip had no significant Biblical influence such as Joseph's tomb or Rachel's tomb and therefore is a piece of land that can be sacrificed for the cause of peace."

Three weeks after the confab, President George W. Bush reversed long-standing U.S. policy, endorsing Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank in exchange for Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

In an interview with the Voice, Upton denied having written the document, though it was sent out from an e-mail account of one of his staffers and bears the organization's seal, which is nearly identical to the Great Seal of the United States. Its idiosyncratic grammar and punctuation tics also closely match those of texts on the Apostolic Congress's website, and Upton verified key details it recounted, including the number of participants in the meeting ("45 ministers including wives") and its conclusion "with a heart-moving send-off of the President in his Presidential helicopter."

Upton refused to confirm further details.

Affiliated with the United Pentecostal Church, the Apostolic Congress is part of an important and disciplined political constituency courted by recent Republican administrations. As a subset of the broader Christian Zionist movement, it has a lengthy history of opposition to any proposal that will not result in what it calls a "one-state solution" in Israel.

The White House's association with the congress, which has just posted a new staffer in Israel who may be running afoul of Israel's strict anti-missionary laws, also raises diplomatic concerns.

The staffer, Kim Hadassah Johnson, wrote in a report obtained by the Voice, "We are establishing the Meet the Need Fund in Israel—'MNFI.' . . . The fund will be an Interest Free Loan Fund that will enable us to loan funds to new believers (others upon application) who need assistance. They will have the opportunity to repay the loan (although it will not be mandatory)." When that language was read to Moshe Fox, minister for public and interreligious affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, he responded, "It sounds against the law which prohibits any kind of money or material [inducement] to make people convert to another religion. That's what it sounds like." (Fox's judgment was e-mailed to Johnson, who did not return a request for comment.)

The Apostolic Congress dates its origins to 1981, when, according to its website, "Brother Stan Wachtstetter was able to open the door to Apostolic Christians into the White House." Apostolics, a sect of Pentecostals, claim legitimacy as the heirs of the original church because they, as the 12 apostles supposedly did, baptize converts in the name of Jesus, not in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Ronald Reagan bore theological affinities with such Christians because of his belief that the world would end in a fiery Armageddon. Reagan himself referenced this belief explicitly a half-dozen times during his presidency.

While the language of apocalyptic Christianity is absent from George W. Bush's speeches, he has proven eager to work with apocalyptics—a point of pride for Upton. "We're in constant contact with the White House," he boasts. "I'm briefed at least once a week via telephone briefings. . . . I was there about two weeks ago . . . At that time we met with the president."

Last spring, after President Bush announced his Road Map plan for peace in the Middle East, the Apostolic Congress co-sponsored an effort with the Jewish group Americans for a Safe Israel that placed billboards in 23 cities with a quotation from Genesis ("Unto thy offspring will I give this land") and the message, "Pray that President Bush Honors God's Covenant with Israel. Call the White House with this message." It then provided the White House phone number and the Apostolic Congress's Web address.

In the interview with the Voice, Pastor Upton claimed personal responsibility for directing 50,000 postcards to the White House opposing the Road Map, which aims to create a Palestinian state. "I'm in total disagreement with any form of Palestinian state," Upton said. "Within a two-week period, getting 50,000 postcards saying the exact same thing from places all over the country, that resonated with the White House. That really caused [President Bush] to backpedal on the Road Map."

When I sought to confirm Upton's account of the meeting with the White House, I was directed to National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones, whose initial response upon being read a list of the names of White House staffers present was a curt, "You know half the people you just mentioned are Jewish?"

When asked for comment on top White House staffers meeting with representatives of an organization that may be breaking Israeli law, Jones responded, "Why would the White House comment on that?"

When asked whose job it is in the administration to study the Bible to discern what parts of Israel were or weren't acceptable sacrifices for peace, Jones said that his previous statements had been off-the-record.

When Pastor Upton was asked to explain why the group's website describes the Apostolic Congress as "the Christian Voice in the nation's capital," instead of simply a Christian voice in the nation's capital, he responded, "There has been a real lack of leadership in having someone emerge as a Christian voice, someone who doesn't speak for the right, someone who doesn't speak for the left, but someone who speaks for the people, and someone who speaks from a theocratical perspective."

When his words were repeated back to him to make sure he had said a "theocratical" perspective, not a "theological" perspective, he said, "Exactly. Exactly. We want to know what God would have us say or what God would have us do in every issue."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Middle East was not the only issue discussed at the March 25 meeting. James Wilkinson, deputy national security advisor for communications, spoke first and is characterized as stating that the 9-11 Commission "is portraying those who have given their all to protect this nation as 'weak on terrorism,' " that "99 percent of all the men and women protecting us in this fight against terrorism are career citizens," and offered the example of Frances Town-send, deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, "who sacrificed Christmas to do a 'security video' conference."

Tim Goeglein, deputy director of public liaison and the White House's point man with evangelical Christians, moderated, and he also spoke on the issue of same-sex marriage. According to the memo, he asked the rhetorical questions: "What will happen to our country if that actually happens? What do those pushing such hope to gain?" His answer: "They want to change America." How so? He quoted the research of Hoover Institute senior fellow Stanley Kurtz, who holds that since gay marriage was legalized in Scandinavia, marriage itself has virtually ceased to exist. (In fact, since Sweden instituted a registered-partnership law for same-sex couples in the mid '90s, there has been no overall change in the marriage and divorce rates there.)

It is Matt Schlapp, White House political director and Karl Rove's chief lieutenant, who was paraphrased as stating "that the Presidents Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level."

Also present at the meeting was Kristen Silverberg, deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy. (None of the participants responded to interview requests.)

The meeting was closed by Goeglein, who was asked, "What can we do to assist in this fight for these issues and our nations [sic] foundation and values?" and who reportedly responded, "Pray, pray, pray, pray."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Apostolic Congress's representative in Israel, Kim Johnson, is ethnically Jewish, keeps kosher, and holds herself to the sumptuary standards of Orthodox Jewish women, so as to better blend in to her surroundings.

In one letter home obtained by the Voice she notes that many of the Apostolic Christians she works with in Israel are Filipino women "married to Jewish men—who on occasion accompany their wives to meetings. We are planning to start a fellowship with this select group where we can meet for dinners and get to know one another. Please Pray for the timing and formation of such." Elsewhere she talks of a discussion with someone "on the pitfalls and aggravations of Christians who missionize Jews." She works often among the Jewish poor—the kind of people who might be interested in interest-free loans—and is thrilled to "meet the outcasts of this Land—how wonderful because they are in the in-casts for His Kingdom."

An ecstatic figure who from her own reports appears to operate at the edge of sanity ("Two of the three nights in my apartment I have been attacked by a hair raising spirit of fear," she writes, noting the sublet contained a Harry Potter book; "at this time I am associating it with witchcraft"), Johnson has also met with Knesset member Gila Gamliel. (Gamliel did not respond to interview requests.) She also boasted of an imminent meeting with a "Knesset leader."

"At this point and for all future mails it is important for me to note that this country has very stiff anti-missionary laws," she warns the followers back home. [D]iscretion is required in all mails. This is particularly important to understand when people write mails or ask about organization efforts regarding such."

Her boss, Pastor Upton, displays a photograph on the Apostolic Congress website of a meeting between himself and Beny Elon, Prime Minister Sharon's tourism minister, famous in Israel for his advocacy of the expulsion of Palestinians from Israeli-controlled lands.

His spokesman in the U.S., Ronn Torassian, affirmed that "Minister Elon knows Mr. Upton well," but when asked whether he is aware that Mr. Upton's staffer may be breaking Israel's anti-missionary laws, snapped: "It's not something he's interested in discussing with The Village Voice."

In addition to its work in Israel, the Apostolic Congress is part of the increasingly Christian public face of pro-Israel activities in the United States. Don Wagner, author of the book Anxious for Armageddon, has been studying Christian Zionism for 15 years, and believes that the current hard-line pro-Israel movement in the U.S. is "predominantly gentile." Often, devotees work in concert with Jewish groups like Americans for a Safe Israel, or AFSI, which set up a mostly Christian Committee for a One-State Solution as the sponsor of last year's billboard campaign. The committee's board included, in addition to Upton, such evangelical luminaries as Gary Bauer and E.E. "Ed" McAteer of the Religious Roundtable.

AFSI's executive director, Helen Freedman, confirms the increasingly Christian cast of her coalition. "We have many good Jews, of course," she says, "but they're in the minority." She adds, "The liberal Jew is unable to believe the Arab when he says his goal is to Islamize the West. . . . But I believe it. And evangelical Christians believe it."

Of Jews who might otherwise support her group's view of Jews' divine right to Israel, she laments, "They're embarrassed about quoting the Bible, about referring to the Covenant, about talking about the Promised Land."

Pastor Upton is not embarrassed, and Helen Freedman is proud of her association with him. She is wistful when asked if she, like Upton, has been able to finagle a meeting with the president. "Pastor Upton is the head of a whole Apostolic Congress," she laments. "It's a nationwide group of evangelicals."

Upton has something Freedman covets: a voting bloc.

She laughs off concerns that, for Christian Zionists, actual Jews living in Israel serve as mere props for their end-time scenario: "We have a different conception of what [the end of the world] will be like . . . Whoever is right will rejoice, and whoever was wrong will say, 'Whoops!' "

She's not worried, either, about evangelical anti-Semitism: "I don't think it exists," she says. She does say, however, that it would concern her if she learned the Apostolic Congress had a representative in Israel trying to win converts: "If we discovered that people were trying to convert Jews to Christianity, we would be very upset."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kim Johnson doesn't call it converting Jews to Christianity. She calls it "Circumcision of the Heart"—a spiritual circumcision Jews must undergo because, she writes in paraphrase of Jeremiah, chapter 9, "God will destroy all the uncircumcised nations along with the House of Israel, because the House of Israel is uncircumcised in the heart . . . [I]t is through the Gospel . . . that men's hearts are circumcised."

Apostolics believe that only 144,000 Jews who have not, prior to the Second Coming of Christ, acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah will be saved in the end times. Though even for those who do not believe in this literal interpretation of the Bible—or for anyone who lives in Israel, or who cares about Israel, or whose security might be affected by a widespread conflagration in the Middle East, which is everyone—the scriptural prophecies of the Christian Zionists should be the least of their worries.

Instead, we should be worried about self-fulfilling prophecies. "Biblically," stated one South Carolina minister in support of the anti-Road Map billboard campaign, "there's always going to be a war."

Don Wagner, an evangelical, worries that in the Republican Party, people who believe this "are dominating the discourse now, in an election year." He calls the attempt to yoke Scripture to current events "a modern heresy, with cultish proportions.

"I mean, it's appalling," he rails on. "And it also shows how marginalized mainstream Christian thinking, and the majority of evangelical thought, have become."

It demonstrates, he says, "the absolute convergence of the neoconservatives with the Christian Zionists and the pro-Israel lobby, driving U.S. Mideast policy."

The problem is not that George W. Bush is discussing policy with people who press right-wing solutions to achieve peace in the Middle East, or with devout Christians. It is that he is discussing policy with Christians who might not care about peace at all—at least until the rapture.

The Jewish pro-Israel lobby, in the interests of peace for those living in the present, might want to consider a disengagement.



More by Rick Perlstein

Hillarious stuff, SherryB.

It could be that republicans are pandering to their base and to a pretty big and influential segment of the democrats' base at the same time.

Why should anyone be shut out of the discussion? I think if you look at your article closely, it does make that argument (that some should be shut out).

No, there they'd go for the tongue. Rush has been a target for boycott and censorship going back to his beginnings in radio.

That's why the ACLU supported Limpsac in his legal troubles in Florida. Because they wanted to silence him?




It is the Bush cult.

It's a Test of effectiveness. The more effective you are, the more you are attacked. (Or on this board, how many say they put you in IGNORE! It's a sign of Success!!

She/he's sooooooo full of it...

Budy Catz....

Israel Insists on Need for Defensible Borders
By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
February 10, 2006

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Given all the political and security threats it faces from hostile neighbors, Israel's borders must be determined based on its strategic security interests, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations said.

"One of the problems still [to be] addressed by the next Israeli government is the line of defense," said Dr. Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.N.

"Defensible borders are one of the most integral parts of Ariel Sharon's legacy," said Gold, a former senior advisor to Sharon.

When Israel decided to pull out of the Gaza Strip, it obtained a letter from President Bush confirming U.S. backing for Israel's right to establish defensible borders.

"The United States reiterates its steadfast commitment to Israel's security, including secure, defensible borders," Bush wrote in his April 14, 2004 letter to Sharon. Two months later, both houses of Congress backed up what the president wrote.

Israel traded Gaza for defensible borders in the West Bank, said Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, which is spearheading the initiative to promote Israel's need for defensible borders.

Israel is fewer than nine miles wide at its narrowest point near the country's largest population center. An Israeli withdrawal from the entire West Bank would return Israel to that position, a condition that Israeli and some U.S. military officials have said is untenable.
Israel is bordered on the north by Lebanon and Syria, on the west by the Mediterranean Sea and on the south by Egypt. The current argument with the Palestinians mainly concerns Israel's eastern front - the West Bank, and the Jordan Valley beyond that.

"Some Israeli spokesmen have implied that the current security fence could become Israel's eastern border," Gold said.

But the fence route, revised in 2005, excludes the hills surrounding Israel's main airport outside Tel Aviv, said Gold. From those hills, a Hamas-fired missile could bring down a jumbo jet while it is taking off or landing, he said.

Israel has come under international condemnation for the route of its security barrier, which it credits for a dramatic reduction in suicide attacks in the center of the country.

According to Gold, Israel's "defensible borders" must also include the Jordan Valley as a buffer zone to stave off conventional attacks from the Arab world and to prevent terror infiltration from al Qaeda, which could link up with Hamas.

The Jordan Valley also would act as a buffer to prevent Palestinian smuggling of advanced weapons into the West Bank.

"Given the strategic situation emerging at present with Hamas, with al Qaeda moving closer to Israel's border and Iran seeking a nuclear umbrella over international terrorism -- for Israel to relinquish the Jordan Valley is an act of national irresponsibility," Gold said.

Palestinians consider the Jordan Valley as part of the West Bank, so-named by Jordan when it occupied the area from 1948-1967. The West Bank referred to the west bank of the Jordan River. The Palestinians want it to become part of a future Palestinian state.

The sparsely populated section of the Jordan Valley in question runs about 35 miles north to south and is about three to seven miles wide at various points and includes hills on the Western side.

Militarily, Israel needs this area to protect itself from conventional armies invading from the east and to put a boundary between the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world, said retired Maj. General Jacob Amidror, director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the JCPA.

"Israel cannot build [its security] on the assumption that the Middle East will look the same in the next 20 years," said Amidror, a former commander of the Israeli army's Military College and former head of the army's research and assessment division, which prepares the national intelligence assessment.

No one can guarantee that the next Iraqi regime will not be closer ideologically to Iran; and that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which is more than 60 percent Palestinian, will not be taken over by the Palestinians; or that the radical Muslim Brotherhood, which made gains in recent elections won't rise to power in Egypt and be in control of the most sophisticated (U.S. supplied) weapons in the Middle East, said Amidror.

Therefore, Israel must be able to defend itself in the case of a conventional war with its neighbors, he said.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus....R20060210d.html

Not so hillarious in my opinion. I received an email which I check out on truth or fiction http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/t/tenmajorevents.htm

TEN MAJOR EVENTS

(Relating to Israel’s Covenant Land) 1. October 30,

1991: The Perfect Storm—As President George H. W. Bush
is opening the Madrid (Spain) Conference to consider
“land for peace” in Israel’s Middle East role, the
“perfect storm” develops in the North Atlantic,
creating the largest waves ever recorded in that
region. The storm travels 1000 miles from “east to
west” instead of the normal “west to east” pattern and
crashes into the New England Coast. Thirty-five foot
waves crash into the Kennebunkport home of President
Bush.

2. August 23, 1992: Hurricane Andrew—When the Madrid
Conference moves to Washington DC and the peace talks
resume, Hurricane Andrew, the worst natural disaster
ever to hit America, comes ashore and produces an
estimated $30 billion in damage and leaving 180,000
homeless in Florida.

3. January 16, 1994: Northridge Earthquake—President
Bill Clinton meets with Syria's President Hafez
el-Assad in Geneva. They talk about a peace agreement
with Israel that includes giving up the Golan Heights.
Within 24 hours, a powerful 6.9 earthquake rocks
Southern California, This quake, centered in
Northridge, becomes the second most destructive
natural disaster to hit the United States, behind
Hurricane Andrew,

4. January 21, 1998: Lewinsky Scandal—Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with President
Clinton at the White House and is coldly received.
Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
refuse to have lunch with him. Shortly afterwards on
that day, the Monica Lewinsky scandal breaks into the
mass media and begins to occupy a major portion of
Clinton's time.

5. September 28, 1998: Hurricane George—As Secretary
of State Albright works on the final details of an
agreement in which Israel would give up 13 percent of
Yesha (Judah and Samaria), Hurricane George slams into
the United States Gulf Coast with 110 mph winds and
gusts up to 175 mph. The hurricane hits the coast and
stalled. On September 28, Clinton meets with Yasser
Arafat and Netanyahu at the White House to finalize
this land deal. Later, Arafat addresses the United
Nations about declaring an independent Palestinian
state by May 1999, as Hurricane George pounds the Gulf
Coast, causing $1 billion in damage. At the exact time
that Arafat departs the country, the storm begins to
dissipate.

6. October 15-22, 1998: Texas Flooded—On October 15,
1998, Arafat and Netanyahu meet at the Wye River
Plantation in Maryland. The talks are scheduled to
last five days with the focus on Israel giving up 13
percent of Yesha. The talks are extended and conclude
on October 23. On October 17, awesome rains and
tornadoes hit southern Texas. The San Antonio area is
deluged with rain. The rain and flooding in Texas
continue until October 22 and then subside. The floods
ravage 25 percent of Texas and leave over one billion
dollars in damage. On October 21, Clinton declares
this section of Texas a major disaster area.

7. November 30, 1998: Market Capitalization
Evaporates—Arafat comes to Washington again to meet
with President Clinton to raise money for a
Palestinian state with Jerusalem as the capital. A
total of 42 other nations were represented in
Washington. All the nations agreed to give Arafat $3
billion in aid. Clinton promised $400 million, and the
European nations $1.7 billion. On the same day, the
Dow Jones average drops 216 points, and on December 1,
the European Market had its third worst day in
history. Hundreds of billions of market capitalization
were wiped out in the U.S. and Europe.

8. December 12, 1998: Clinton is Impeached—As Clinton
lands in the Palestinian-controlled section of Israel
to discuss the “land for peace” process, the House of
Representatives votes four articles of impeachment
against him.

9. May 3, 1999: The Powerful Super Tornado—On the day
that Yasser Arafat is scheduled to declare a
Palestinian state with Jerusalem as the capital, the
most powerful tornado storm system ever to hit the
United States sweeps across Oklahoma and Kansas. The
winds are clocked at 316 mph the fastest wind speed
ever recorded. The declaration is postponed to
December 1999 at the request of President Clinton,
whose letter to Arafat encourages him in his
"aspirations for his own land." He also writes that
the Palestinians have a right to "determine their own
future on their own land" and that they deserve to
"live free, today, tomorrow and forever."

10. Week of October 11: Hurricane, Earthquake and Dow
Collapse—As Jewish settlers in 15 West Bank (Israel)
settlements are evicted from the covenant land in
Israel, the Dow-Jones financial averages lose 5.7
percent in the worst week since October 1989. On
October 15 the Dow lost 266 points, and a hurricane
slams into North Carolina. On the next morning,
October 16, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocks the
southwest in the fifth most powerful earthquake in
20th Century. The earthquake was centered in the
California desert and did little damage but was felt
in three states.

Add to this the fact that Katrina happened while the
Jews were forced out of the Gaza strip.

I'm glad that the President is checking it out.

Are you actually linking natural phenomenon with what's happening with Israel?

Obviously, you didn't read the post?


creating the largest waves ever recorded in that
region. The storm travels 1000 miles from “east to
west” instead of the normal “west to east” pattern and
crashes into the New England Coast.

Hurricane Andrew, the worst natural disaster
ever to hit America,



This quake, centered in
Northridge, becomes the second most destructive
natural disaster to hit the United States, behind
Hurricane Andrew,



On the same day, the
Dow Jones average drops 216 points, and on December 1,
the European Market had its third worst day in
history.

most powerful tornado storm system ever to hit the
United States sweeps across Oklahoma and Kansas. The
winds are clocked at 316 mph the fastest wind speed
ever recorded.


On the next morning,
October 16, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocks the
southwest in the fifth most powerful earthquake in
20th Century.

I could link natural phenomenon like earthquakes and hurricanes with virtually anything else depending on how I used media references and statistics.

I'm more than skeptical.

Suit yourself. Stastistics are against you.

Or we could just blame them all on Bush.

That would make about as much sense.

Did you know gays caused Hurricane Katrina?

How did they manage to do that?