La historia ya la conocen y saben quién ganó, claro. Pero la película muestra como ambos se van cruzando en medio de las batallas que se dieron por defender a Jerusalem cuando en 1948 Israel declara su independencia en la mitad otorgada por la ONU y los 5 vecinos se lanzan al ataque.

Teniendo en cuenta que el director es Francés, no me extrañó ver en la película:

- Cuando muere un árabe protagonista, lo mata el protagonista judío.
- Cuando muere un judío protagonista, lo mata ¡un policía británico! Nunca un árabe.
- Cuando vienen los jordanos a Latrún y ven el despelote que hicieron con los judíos, miran con cara de buenos y dicen "yo no quería esta carnicería!". Seguramente quería ir a jugar al truco a la casa del Rabino.
- Cuando los árabes copan Latrun, van y le piden gentilmente a los sacerdotes que los dejen asentarse en el monasterio como cuartel general. Parecían los chicos del orfanato pidiendo colaboración.
- Al tío de Said (el protagonista árabe) lo mata el protagonista judío (¡y no cualquiera!)
- Pero Said le prohibe a su gente que le toquen un pelo al judío (su amigo) so pena de muerte.
- El Rey Abdula de Jordania es el que pide el cese de las hostilidades (¿sabrá quién las empezó?)
- Cuando llegan a un encuentro en medio de la guerra, los jordanos se apiadan de la poca cantidad de judíos que eran en realidad, y en vez de matarlos, mandan a curarlos con médicos a todos, ¡y los abrazan!
- Y al final de la película, cuando Jerusalem es liberada del asedio árabe, no se muestra una sola imagen de festejo ni de alivio judío. Es más, si te agachaste a levantar un pochoclo que se cayó en la alfombra y te levantaste, por ahí te perdés el final y no queda claro quién ganó la guerra.

Menos mal que tenemos los libros de historia y el canal palestino de TV que nos recuerda semana a semana quién se comió los mocos y se tuvo que ir a buscar la llave a lo del vecino.

Bueno, sí, esa última frase es un poco fuerte para vos que no captás el canal de TV palestino. Sori. Sé que no estás acostumbrado a estas cosas.

Lo interesante para este post es la parte de "de acuerdo a fuentes palestinas" una tendencia que desde el 2008 hasta hoy no se ha modificado, las noticias en la prensa internacional sobre el conflicto arabe-israeli se suelen hacer "de acuerdo a fuentes palestinas" esto se nota acentuadamente por ejemplo en en el conocido episodio como el "bombardeo de gaza" (pueden ver los posts al respecto en Lectura Obligada) donde la noticia se convierte en automaticamente verificada y profundamente investigada con solo mencionar las "fuentes palestinas". Fabian escribio una carta a Clarin por algo parecido, la vision palestina se convierte en LA vision verdadera.

Esto tambien se da en una noticia reciente, aunque hay que admitir que solo en algunos casos, descontando los sitios de noticias de paises islamicos, podemos encontrar algunos ejemplos de lo que estaba hablando:

La agencia de noticias oficial china, Xinuha, titula:

Jewish settlers kill Palestinian herder near Nablus

O esta otra:

Colonos israelíes matan a un pastor palestino (fuentes palestinas)

O la misma AFP en su cable en portugues:

Colonos israelenses matam jovem pastor palestino

Claro esta, que luego y como suele suceder en estos casos, la policia israeli y con evidencia cientifia y no simples rumores determina la verdadera circunstancia en la que sucedieron los hechos:

Neighbors and relatives of the teenager had accused extremist settlers of killing him, and police looked into that possibility. But spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said forensics experts determined the shepherd was killed after he picked up an unexploded shell that detonated in his hands.

Rosenfeld said the shepherd's body suffered shrapnel wounds, and there were no signs the shepherd was shot.

Al final no habia sido disparo alguno efectuador por israelies que viven en  Judea y Samaria sino por haber recogido algun artefacto sin explotar cuya explosion le produjo la muerte.

September 24, 2008

"Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," a Liberty Film Festival winner for best feature documentary film in DVD form, is a must-see movie for anyone.
Advertisement

The president of the Hudson Institute, a respected think tank, writes, "If you haven't seen it, you should! And if you have seen it, you should insist that others see it as well. Our future may depend on it." United States Naval War College Professor Jeffrey Norwitz sees it as "expertly produced with solid historic research; ... every viewer regardless of background will learn something."

The film is "about a radical worldview, and the threat it poses to us all, Muslims and non-Muslims alike," according to the nonprofit, non-partisan organization that made the film. The organization's mission is to educate Americans about national security issues through documentary films, Web sites and educational materials.

The one-hour film is especially valuable, as in it the radical jihadists tell the story themselves. Unedited footage from Arab television shows rare scenes, from the education and indoctrination of Arab children in the classroom, where they are taught to value jihad and "the love of fighting, ... for the sake of Allah," to a suicide-bomber induction ceremony and fiery speeches in Middle East mosques and in London and New York City streets, preaching the Islamization of the world and the destruction of the Jews, the Americans and the British.

What Wikipedia called "notable counter-terrorism figures" provide the analysis in the film. Among them are Egyptian-American writer Nonie Darwish, a graduate of the American University in Cairo, daughter of an Egyptian lieutenant general who headed Fadayeen terror operations against Israel, and was assassinated by the Israelis in 1956 when Darwish was 8; Bethlehem-born Walid Shoebat, with a Palestinian father and an American mother, an anti-Israeli activist turned supporter of Israel after Sep. 11, 2001, a controversial former Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorist; West-Bank-born Khaled Abu Toameh, with an Israeli Arab father and a Palestinian Arab mother, a graduate of the Hebrew University, and a senior reporter for the Jerusalem Post; Alfons Heck, a member of Hitler Youth who became a Nazi officer, described by Wikipedia as "a fanatical adherent of Nazism's ideologies."

The film contains footage of radical Muslims' global jihad attacks in New York City, London, Madrid; in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe -- "all fronts of a global jihad," says one analyst.

Analysts were unanimous that "history repeats itself," as the film reviews Hitler's Mein Kampf of the German "Aryans" against the "Jewish peril," connects "the dots" showing parallels between radical Islamists' jihad and the Nazi holocaust, the similar propaganda techniques of continuously demonizing enemies, the remarkable resemblance in manipulating young minds toward fanatic hatred and training followers to accept death -- the difference being death for the Fatherland was dictated by Hitler, a man, while death for the sake of Allah claims the sanction of the Almighty.

As the film shows, the 1998 Jordanian and Palestinian school book teaches, "This religion (Islam) will destroy all other religions through the Islamic Jihad fighters," a final goal of the radical jihadists.

"I was an intense believer in the Nazi ideology," says Heck in the film. "I know what a supreme dedication to an ideology can do."

"We need to understand the culture that produces terrorism," says Darwish. After 9/11, people asked "why do they hate us?" Some blame themselves and U.S. foreign policies. This "distracted" from the real reason of an "ideology that wants to destroy us."

Professor Robert Wistrich of the Sassoon Center for Antisemitism thinks of a "particular strand" in Islam represented by the radicals that challenges the "sacredness of life" embraced by Western culture.

The film shows Sheik Ibrahim Mahdi speak on Palestinian TV: "We must educate our children on the love of Jihad for the sake of Allah. And the love of fighting ...." And Palestinian TV footage of 1998 shows children recite, "I march quickly toward my death."

The former dean of Islamic Law at Qatar University laments, "We have not succeeded in making our children love life ...."

Analysts asked in the film: If radical jihadists dehumanize the West and preach every day that it is evil and must be destroyed, and if Palestine and Saudi TV preach kids to want to become suicide bombers,"what do you expect will happen?

Palestinian journalist Toameh says, "As a Muslim I feel pretty worried, ... and I feel shamed; ... Islam has been hijacked by different fanatic groups." He hopes it is "out of fear and not out of sympathy" that the "silent majority" of Muslims don't speak up.

Professor Wistrich asserts that that there is "No evil that simply has disappeared on its own accord." He laments, evil triumphs "because there is not enough people who stand up" to defeat it.

You "can't claim ignorance anymore," says Darwish, and analysts in the film agree if we continue to ignore radical Islam, we do so "at our own peril," and "risk our own demise."

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years.

http://www.guampdn.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080924/OPINION02/809240327/1014/OPINION

September 24, 2008

"Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," a Liberty Film Festival winner for best feature documentary film in DVD form, is a must-see movie for anyone.
Advertisement

The president of the Hudson Institute, a respected think tank, writes, "If you haven't seen it, you should! And if you have seen it, you should insist that others see it as well. Our future may depend on it." United States Naval War College Professor Jeffrey Norwitz sees it as "expertly produced with solid historic research; ... every viewer regardless of background will learn something."

The film is "about a radical worldview, and the threat it poses to us all, Muslims and non-Muslims alike," according to the nonprofit, non-partisan organization that made the film. The organization's mission is to educate Americans about national security issues through documentary films, Web sites and educational materials.

The one-hour film is especially valuable, as in it the radical jihadists tell the story themselves. Unedited footage from Arab television shows rare scenes, from the education and indoctrination of Arab children in the classroom, where they are taught to value jihad and "the love of fighting, ... for the sake of Allah," to a suicide-bomber induction ceremony and fiery speeches in Middle East mosques and in London and New York City streets, preaching the Islamization of the world and the destruction of the Jews, the Americans and the British.

What Wikipedia called "notable counter-terrorism figures" provide the analysis in the film. Among them are Egyptian-American writer Nonie Darwish, a graduate of the American University in Cairo, daughter of an Egyptian lieutenant general who headed Fadayeen terror operations against Israel, and was assassinated by the Israelis in 1956 when Darwish was 8; Bethlehem-born Walid Shoebat, with a Palestinian father and an American mother, an anti-Israeli activist turned supporter of Israel after Sep. 11, 2001, a controversial former Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorist; West-Bank-born Khaled Abu Toameh, with an Israeli Arab father and a Palestinian Arab mother, a graduate of the Hebrew University, and a senior reporter for the Jerusalem Post; Alfons Heck, a member of Hitler Youth who became a Nazi officer, described by Wikipedia as "a fanatical adherent of Nazism's ideologies."

The film contains footage of radical Muslims' global jihad attacks in New York City, London, Madrid; in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe -- "all fronts of a global jihad," says one analyst.

Analysts were unanimous that "history repeats itself," as the film reviews Hitler's Mein Kampf of the German "Aryans" against the "Jewish peril," connects "the dots" showing parallels between radical Islamists' jihad and the Nazi holocaust, the similar propaganda techniques of continuously demonizing enemies, the remarkable resemblance in manipulating young minds toward fanatic hatred and training followers to accept death -- the difference being death for the Fatherland was dictated by Hitler, a man, while death for the sake of Allah claims the sanction of the Almighty.

As the film shows, the 1998 Jordanian and Palestinian school book teaches, "This religion (Islam) will destroy all other religions through the Islamic Jihad fighters," a final goal of the radical jihadists.

"I was an intense believer in the Nazi ideology," says Heck in the film. "I know what a supreme dedication to an ideology can do."

"We need to understand the culture that produces terrorism," says Darwish. After 9/11, people asked "why do they hate us?" Some blame themselves and U.S. foreign policies. This "distracted" from the real reason of an "ideology that wants to destroy us."

Professor Robert Wistrich of the Sassoon Center for Antisemitism thinks of a "particular strand" in Islam represented by the radicals that challenges the "sacredness of life" embraced by Western culture.

The film shows Sheik Ibrahim Mahdi speak on Palestinian TV: "We must educate our children on the love of Jihad for the sake of Allah. And the love of fighting ...." And Palestinian TV footage of 1998 shows children recite, "I march quickly toward my death."

The former dean of Islamic Law at Qatar University laments, "We have not succeeded in making our children love life ...."

Analysts asked in the film: If radical jihadists dehumanize the West and preach every day that it is evil and must be destroyed, and if Palestine and Saudi TV preach kids to want to become suicide bombers,"what do you expect will happen?

Palestinian journalist Toameh says, "As a Muslim I feel pretty worried, ... and I feel shamed; ... Islam has been hijacked by different fanatic groups." He hopes it is "out of fear and not out of sympathy" that the "silent majority" of Muslims don't speak up.

Professor Wistrich asserts that that there is "No evil that simply has disappeared on its own accord." He laments, evil triumphs "because there is not enough people who stand up" to defeat it.

You "can't claim ignorance anymore," says Darwish, and analysts in the film agree if we continue to ignore radical Islam, we do so "at our own peril," and "risk our own demise."

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years.

http://www.guampdn.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080924/OPINION02/809240327/1014/OPINION

You Must Watch 'Obsession' because CAIR doesn't want you to know the truth about Radical Islam

Topics: Understanding Islam

Via Dan Riehl, I see that CAIR is once again "Outraged" - this time in Fla - and they want to shut down the distribution of copies of the movie, Obsession, being distributed in newspapers there. Apparently a few politically correct, highly ill informed, naive papers have refused to include the insert including one in North Carolina. Dan has the links to two videos to YouTube by CAIRtv in which the also obviously politically correct, highly ill-informed, naive newscasters play right into the hands of the Muslim activist group (with a highly dangerous agenda for America) and with proven ties to terrorists.

Dan has posted on the campaign and has done a review of Obsession here.

Now given that CAIR doesn't want you to see the movie and just in case you haven't received a free copy or somehow have failed to see it by now, please watch this 6 part youtube FoxNews film which Lionheart suggests is one of the best and most informative films you will see on the threat we in the civilized World face in relation to Islam's Holy War against us (HT - Lionheart for posting the links to all six parts at YouTube): Fox News:The Threat of Radical Islam (Parts 1 - 6). I was fortunate enough to watch the entire Fox News special at the time of its airing and enjoyed every minute of it. And, of course, E.D. Hill as the announcer, made it all the more effective.

Part 1 - Obsession

Part 2 - Obsession

Part 3 - Obsession

Part 4 - Obsession

Part 5 - Obsession

Part 6 - Obsession

Website: Radical Islam's War against the West

Current related:

Middle East professor says controversial Obsession movie "straightforward" (Via Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch):

Always refreshing to see a member of that bastion of Islamic apologetics -- academia -- actually being objective. More on this story. "Swift dispute, radical Muslims DVD flare scrutiny of Islam," by Chris Casey for the Tribune, September 21:

James Lindsay, an associate professor of Middle Eastern history at CSU, takes an opposite view on "Obsession." He believes it's a straightforward look at radical Islam.

He said the producers are explicit that film is about the radical ideology within Islam, which is advanced by the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaida and other groups. The film's introduction states that most Muslims are peaceful and don't support terror.

The militant Islamic branch -- which the film says makes up about 10 percent to 15 percent of a worldwide Muslim population of 1.2 billion, the world's second-largest religion behind Christianity -- has a conquest ideology, Lindsay said.

"It's one of subjugating the world to their ideology. There is not room for another ideology, according to the radical Muslim ideology, and it's frightening," he said. "But it's part and parcel of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and the al-Qaida types that they want to impose their will on everyone."[...]

Lindsay, the CSU professor, said the Muslims who flew the airplanes into the Twin Towers felt they were doing God's work.

Muslims who say "jihad" means the struggle for personal betterment aren't giving the full picture of what's written in the classical text, he said. Rather, the text says the Islamic practitioner is preparing himself to be a better warrior.

"The idea of the jihad as laid out by extremists is one of the doctrines within the Quran itself," Lindsay said. "It's a fundamental tenet of Islamic religion and it has been in Islamic history -- engaging in warfare against the enemies of Islam."

Conflicts between the West and Islam are inevitable, Lindsay said, because the demands of Islamic law are in conflict with the West's approach to law and religion. The Quran speaks of creating a society that's obedient to God's law, not obedient to men's model, he said.

Lindsay believes the way to deal with Muslim immigrants -- as in the case of the JBS Swift workers -- is to explain how employment rules and policies operate in the United States. "I have no desire to make any accommodations to Islamic law, and that's my opinion."

Other current related: 15-year-old female would-be suicide bomber tells her story

http://www.hyscience.com/archives/understanding_islam/

You Must Watch 'Obsession' because CAIR doesn't want you to know the truth about Radical Islam

Topics: Understanding Islam

Via Dan Riehl, I see that CAIR is once again "Outraged" - this time in Fla - and they want to shut down the distribution of copies of the movie, Obsession, being distributed in newspapers there. Apparently a few politically correct, highly ill informed, naive papers have refused to include the insert including one in North Carolina. Dan has the links to two videos to YouTube by CAIRtv in which the also obviously politically correct, highly ill-informed, naive newscasters play right into the hands of the Muslim activist group (with a highly dangerous agenda for America) and with proven ties to terrorists.

Dan has posted on the campaign and has done a review of Obsession here.

Now given that CAIR doesn't want you to see the movie and just in case you haven't received a free copy or somehow have failed to see it by now, please watch this 6 part youtube FoxNews film which Lionheart suggests is one of the best and most informative films you will see on the threat we in the civilized World face in relation to Islam's Holy War against us (HT - Lionheart for posting the links to all six parts at YouTube): Fox News:The Threat of Radical Islam (Parts 1 - 6). I was fortunate enough to watch the entire Fox News special at the time of its airing and enjoyed every minute of it. And, of course, E.D. Hill as the announcer, made it all the more effective.

Part 1 - Obsession

Part 2 - Obsession

Part 3 - Obsession

Part 4 - Obsession

Part 5 - Obsession

Part 6 - Obsession

Website: Radical Islam's War against the West

Current related:

Middle East professor says controversial Obsession movie "straightforward" (Via Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch):

Always refreshing to see a member of that bastion of Islamic apologetics -- academia -- actually being objective. More on this story. "Swift dispute, radical Muslims DVD flare scrutiny of Islam," by Chris Casey for the Tribune, September 21:

James Lindsay, an associate professor of Middle Eastern history at CSU, takes an opposite view on "Obsession." He believes it's a straightforward look at radical Islam.

He said the producers are explicit that film is about the radical ideology within Islam, which is advanced by the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaida and other groups. The film's introduction states that most Muslims are peaceful and don't support terror.

The militant Islamic branch -- which the film says makes up about 10 percent to 15 percent of a worldwide Muslim population of 1.2 billion, the world's second-largest religion behind Christianity -- has a conquest ideology, Lindsay said.

"It's one of subjugating the world to their ideology. There is not room for another ideology, according to the radical Muslim ideology, and it's frightening," he said. "But it's part and parcel of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and the al-Qaida types that they want to impose their will on everyone."[...]

Lindsay, the CSU professor, said the Muslims who flew the airplanes into the Twin Towers felt they were doing God's work.

Muslims who say "jihad" means the struggle for personal betterment aren't giving the full picture of what's written in the classical text, he said. Rather, the text says the Islamic practitioner is preparing himself to be a better warrior.

"The idea of the jihad as laid out by extremists is one of the doctrines within the Quran itself," Lindsay said. "It's a fundamental tenet of Islamic religion and it has been in Islamic history -- engaging in warfare against the enemies of Islam."

Conflicts between the West and Islam are inevitable, Lindsay said, because the demands of Islamic law are in conflict with the West's approach to law and religion. The Quran speaks of creating a society that's obedient to God's law, not obedient to men's model, he said.

Lindsay believes the way to deal with Muslim immigrants -- as in the case of the JBS Swift workers -- is to explain how employment rules and policies operate in the United States. "I have no desire to make any accommodations to Islamic law, and that's my opinion."

Other current related: 15-year-old female would-be suicide bomber tells her story

http://www.hyscience.com/archives/understanding_islam/

You Must Watch 'Obsession' because CAIR doesn't want you to know the truth about Radical Islam

Topics: Understanding Islam

Via Dan Riehl, I see that CAIR is once again "Outraged" - this time in Fla - and they want to shut down the distribution of copies of the movie, Obsession, being distributed in newspapers there. Apparently a few politically correct, highly ill informed, naive papers have refused to include the insert including one in North Carolina. Dan has the links to two videos to YouTube by CAIRtv in which the also obviously politically correct, highly ill-informed, naive newscasters play right into the hands of the Muslim activist group (with a highly dangerous agenda for America) and with proven ties to terrorists.

Dan has posted on the campaign and has done a review of Obsession here.

Now given that CAIR doesn't want you to see the movie and just in case you haven't received a free copy or somehow have failed to see it by now, please watch this 6 part youtube FoxNews film which Lionheart suggests is one of the best and most informative films you will see on the threat we in the civilized World face in relation to Islam's Holy War against us (HT - Lionheart for posting the links to all six parts at YouTube): Fox News:The Threat of Radical Islam (Parts 1 - 6). I was fortunate enough to watch the entire Fox News special at the time of its airing and enjoyed every minute of it. And, of course, E.D. Hill as the announcer, made it all the more effective.

Part 1 - Obsession

Part 2 - Obsession

Part 3 - Obsession

Part 4 - Obsession

Part 5 - Obsession

Part 6 - Obsession

Website: Radical Islam's War against the West

Current related:

Middle East professor says controversial Obsession movie "straightforward" (Via Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch):

Always refreshing to see a member of that bastion of Islamic apologetics -- academia -- actually being objective. More on this story. "Swift dispute, radical Muslims DVD flare scrutiny of Islam," by Chris Casey for the Tribune, September 21:

James Lindsay, an associate professor of Middle Eastern history at CSU, takes an opposite view on "Obsession." He believes it's a straightforward look at radical Islam.

He said the producers are explicit that film is about the radical ideology within Islam, which is advanced by the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaida and other groups. The film's introduction states that most Muslims are peaceful and don't support terror.

The militant Islamic branch -- which the film says makes up about 10 percent to 15 percent of a worldwide Muslim population of 1.2 billion, the world's second-largest religion behind Christianity -- has a conquest ideology, Lindsay said.

"It's one of subjugating the world to their ideology. There is not room for another ideology, according to the radical Muslim ideology, and it's frightening," he said. "But it's part and parcel of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and the al-Qaida types that they want to impose their will on everyone."[...]

Lindsay, the CSU professor, said the Muslims who flew the airplanes into the Twin Towers felt they were doing God's work.

Muslims who say "jihad" means the struggle for personal betterment aren't giving the full picture of what's written in the classical text, he said. Rather, the text says the Islamic practitioner is preparing himself to be a better warrior.

"The idea of the jihad as laid out by extremists is one of the doctrines within the Quran itself," Lindsay said. "It's a fundamental tenet of Islamic religion and it has been in Islamic history -- engaging in warfare against the enemies of Islam."

Conflicts between the West and Islam are inevitable, Lindsay said, because the demands of Islamic law are in conflict with the West's approach to law and religion. The Quran speaks of creating a society that's obedient to God's law, not obedient to men's model, he said.

Lindsay believes the way to deal with Muslim immigrants -- as in the case of the JBS Swift workers -- is to explain how employment rules and policies operate in the United States. "I have no desire to make any accommodations to Islamic law, and that's my opinion."

Other current related: 15-year-old female would-be suicide bomber tells her story

http://www.hyscience.com/archives/understanding_islam/

Dr. Richard L. Cravatts, a lecturer at Boston University, Simmons College, Babson College, and Emmanuel College, is Director of Boston University's Program for Book and Magazine Publishing at BU's Center for Professional Education. He writes frequently on law, social policy, religion, marketing, politics, and housing development.

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Richard L. Cravatts Ph.D.
August 10, 2008
As part of evaluating the competitive landscape of the popularity of nations, in a process referred to in marketing circles as ´place branding,´ Israel, to no one´s great surprise, comes up short in brand likeability, ranking last out of 35 nations included in an August 2006 survey conducted by nation branding expert Simon Anholt, even less attractive to respondents than Indonesia, Estonia, and Turkey.

How could this have happened to a country that is the Middle East´s only thriving democracy and enjoys a remarkably robust economy that has spawned some 1000 startup high tech companies, for example, second only to the U.S.? How, in short, would you go about making the world hate Israel?

This is how you would accomplish that objective if you were an enemy of Israel:

Even after 60 years of its existence, you question the fundamental right of Israel to even exist and regularly, though falsely, condemn it for being created "illegally"—through the "theft" of Palestinian lands and property—and thus decide, because of its original sin, it has no "right to exist." You accuse the government of a "brutal," illegal "occupation" of Palestinian lands, especially Gaza and the West Bank (but for many, all of Israel), of being a "colonial settler state," a Zionist "regime" or "project," a land-hungry nation, a usurper of property that was lived on and owned by a Palestinian "people" "from time immemorial."

You describe the very existence of the country as being the "greatest threat to world peace," the core cause of all Muslim anger toward the West, the root of all of the Palestinians´ suffering and economic plight, and describe Israel as a nation that has even been referred to publicly as a "shitty little country" by the French ambassador to Britain.

You make ´Palestinianism´ into a virtual cult whose members offer a world-wide reverence for the Palestinian cause and repeat without end that their nationalistic striving is inviolable, a basic human right, Of all the 100 million refugees who were dispersed around the globe and were re-assimilated since World War II, you chose only the Palestinians to languish, as if in amber, in barbaric refugee camps where their lives are used as political fodder to denounce the existence of an Israel that supposedly has deprived them of a home.

You have the United Nations set up an agency whose sole function it is to make sure that this one group of refugees in the whole world are coddled, advocated for, and repeat, mantra-like, that a human "right of return" has been sanctified and assured by international law for the Palestinians, giving only this group of refugees a collective, as opposed to individual, right of return—and not only to those refugees who supposedly lived in and left what is now Israel, but all of their descendents, as well.

You use the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council of the United Nations to further demonize and delegitimate Israel, making it a pariah in the world community and issuing an edict that equates Zionism with racism. In 2006-07, if you are the Human Rights Council, you pass one hundred percent of your condemnatory resolutions against Israel.

If you are the autocratic, despotic states of the Arab world, you initiate a prolonged, unceasing propaganda war against Israel and Zionism, in which it is your intention to encourage your citizens, not to question why they live under tyranny and despair under their own corrupt, defective governments, but that their circumstances are bleak because of the success and very existence of Israel. You depict Jews as apes, pigs, and subhuman monsters, and regularly produce Nazi-like propaganda and cartoons in your state-owned media that accuses Jews and Israelis of blood libels, bloodthirstiness, militarism, a desire for world domination, imperialism, and complicity with the U.S. and the West to destroy Islam—all which make Jew-hatred inevitable.

You inculcate Palestinian children, nearly from birth, with seething, blind, unrelenting, and obsessive hatred of Jews and the 'Zionist regime,' so that kindergartners graduate with blood-soaked hands while toting plastic AK 47s and dedicate their lives to jihad, and older children are recruited to hide explosives on their bodies to transform themselves into shahids -- a new generation of kindling for radical Islam's cult of death.

When Israel launches a military strike against nests of terrorists or in response to ceaseless rocket barrages, you term their response "disproportionate," another escalation in the "cycle of violence," a violation of human rights, aggressive, militaristic, with Apache gunships "pounding" terrorist neighborhoods. Whenever you refer to any attack on Israel by terrorists, or the barrage of thousands of rockets that have rained down on Israel towns for two years from inside Gaza, you characterize them as innocuous, carried out with "crude, homemade, rockets," in order to gloss over their actual lethality.

If you are the Palestinian media, and members of the world media who are either intentionally biased or willing to be duped by anti-Israel propaganda, you repeatedly report on supposed Israeli human rights violations, such as an alleged "massacre of the 21st century," a horrible war crime and example of "genocide" committed by Israel against Palestinians in the village of Jenin.

You talk about the Israeli security barrier as an "apartheid wall," and describe it as a massive, soaring, unbroken division through Palestinian neighborhoods and communities, overlooking the fact that the wall is towering and solid concrete only in those regions that have been repeatedly assaulted by terrorism, and that 90 percent of the hundreds of miles of barrier is comprised merely of wire fence.

You use the "apartheid wall" image to create a broader misconception about the Palestinians living under a South African-style apartheid regime, disingenuously equating race restrictions that blacks lived under in Soweto with the open society of Israel in which Israeli Arabs have more rights than in any Arab state and are asked only not to murder Jews in their midst.

On campuses where a coddled and insulated professoriate often express antipathy for the perceived ills of capitalism, the usurpation of "Palestine" by Israel, "land grabs" through occupation, and the denial of the civil and economic rights of the Palestinians, you contend that Israel´s very existence is not at all about self-determination (something you deem appropriate only for the Palestinians) and all about greed, globalism, colonialism, exploitation, and undeserved political and economic might. No longer able to fight apartheid in South Africa, you now try to transmogrify that racist social system onto Israel, holding rallies and encouraging the signing of petitions which call from divestiture from companies doing business in Israel.

You fund Middle Eastern Studies centers on university campuses and use them as anti-Israel, anti-American "think tanks" where scholarship is tainted with ideology and singularly focused on the Palestinian cause. You fund the active and vocal Muslim Students Association on campuses across the country that hold "Israel Apartheid Week" and "Holocaust in the Holy Land" festivals at which propaganda, Jew-hatred, apologies for terrorism, and further demonizing of Israel takes place.

In the Arab world, you play fast and loose with history in your attempt to create a historical narrative conforming to your own political agenda, erasing any link between Palestine and the Jews. Though Jerusalem is mentioned not once in the Koran and over 669 times in the Jewish Bible, you claim that Jerusalem is now the "third holiest site to Muslims," that, as Yasser Arafat announced at Camp David in 2000, the Temple Mount was never a Jewish site, that Jews now "occupy" Muslim lands, and that the archeological and historical evidence that confirms an uninterrupted 3000-year presence by Jews in the Holy Land is merely a "construct," yet another lie promulgated by Israeli historians and archeologists as way of erasing and obscuring an Islamic past.

If you are in the Muslim world or the netherworld of Jew-haters, you question the actual extent and truthfulness of the Holocaust, first complaining that the Palestinians should not have been made to suffer the loss of their homeland because of the German´s extermination of European Jewry—leading in some part to the creation of Israel—and then at other times questioning whether the Holocaust even occurred and accusing Zionists of using the fictitious event as a way to falsely extract sympathy from the world community and force them into giving Palestine away to the Jews.

If you are in the traditionally Arabist U.S. State Department, or in the "realist" school of diplomacy, or part of the European Union, and you have an insatiable need for oil, you overlook the tyrannies and unfaithfulness of our Middle Eastern "friends," and ask nothing of them, but demand that Israel, the only democracy in a sea of despotism, continually prove its loyalty to us and embrace policies that could potentially threaten their own security. You write academic books questioning the strength of the "Israel Lobby," and wonder out loud if Jewish influence and wealth forces us to lose credibility and threaten our national security on behalf of Israel.

You do all of these things, as part of a concerted effort and also as random, independent efforts on the part of Israel´s enemies, and you do it for the 60 years of Israel´s existence, and then you are shocked, shocked, when Israel is shown to rank unfavorably in surveys which measure the public´s perception of nations and how they compare to one another in the world community. But you are pleased, because you know that if Israel cannot be annihilated with armaments and rockets, perhaps you can make it cease to exist simply by making the entire world loathe it for being what it is.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/70990

Tags: Apartheid, Islamic Apartheid, Israel, Jews, Muslims, racism, Propaganda, Pallywood, UN, Arabism, Anti Israel bigotry

Dr. Richard L. Cravatts, a lecturer at Boston University, Simmons College, Babson College, and Emmanuel College, is Director of Boston University's Program for Book and Magazine Publishing at BU's Center for Professional Education. He writes frequently on law, social policy, religion, marketing, politics, and housing development.

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Richard L. Cravatts Ph.D.
August 10, 2008
As part of evaluating the competitive landscape of the popularity of nations, in a process referred to in marketing circles as ´place branding,´ Israel, to no one´s great surprise, comes up short in brand likeability, ranking last out of 35 nations included in an August 2006 survey conducted by nation branding expert Simon Anholt, even less attractive to respondents than Indonesia, Estonia, and Turkey.

How could this have happened to a country that is the Middle East´s only thriving democracy and enjoys a remarkably robust economy that has spawned some 1000 startup high tech companies, for example, second only to the U.S.? How, in short, would you go about making the world hate Israel?

This is how you would accomplish that objective if you were an enemy of Israel:

Even after 60 years of its existence, you question the fundamental right of Israel to even exist and regularly, though falsely, condemn it for being created "illegally"—through the "theft" of Palestinian lands and property—and thus decide, because of its original sin, it has no "right to exist." You accuse the government of a "brutal," illegal "occupation" of Palestinian lands, especially Gaza and the West Bank (but for many, all of Israel), of being a "colonial settler state," a Zionist "regime" or "project," a land-hungry nation, a usurper of property that was lived on and owned by a Palestinian "people" "from time immemorial."

You describe the very existence of the country as being the "greatest threat to world peace," the core cause of all Muslim anger toward the West, the root of all of the Palestinians´ suffering and economic plight, and describe Israel as a nation that has even been referred to publicly as a "shitty little country" by the French ambassador to Britain.

You make ´Palestinianism´ into a virtual cult whose members offer a world-wide reverence for the Palestinian cause and repeat without end that their nationalistic striving is inviolable, a basic human right, Of all the 100 million refugees who were dispersed around the globe and were re-assimilated since World War II, you chose only the Palestinians to languish, as if in amber, in barbaric refugee camps where their lives are used as political fodder to denounce the existence of an Israel that supposedly has deprived them of a home.

You have the United Nations set up an agency whose sole function it is to make sure that this one group of refugees in the whole world are coddled, advocated for, and repeat, mantra-like, that a human "right of return" has been sanctified and assured by international law for the Palestinians, giving only this group of refugees a collective, as opposed to individual, right of return—and not only to those refugees who supposedly lived in and left what is now Israel, but all of their descendents, as well.

You use the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council of the United Nations to further demonize and delegitimate Israel, making it a pariah in the world community and issuing an edict that equates Zionism with racism. In 2006-07, if you are the Human Rights Council, you pass one hundred percent of your condemnatory resolutions against Israel.

If you are the autocratic, despotic states of the Arab world, you initiate a prolonged, unceasing propaganda war against Israel and Zionism, in which it is your intention to encourage your citizens, not to question why they live under tyranny and despair under their own corrupt, defective governments, but that their circumstances are bleak because of the success and very existence of Israel. You depict Jews as apes, pigs, and subhuman monsters, and regularly produce Nazi-like propaganda and cartoons in your state-owned media that accuses Jews and Israelis of blood libels, bloodthirstiness, militarism, a desire for world domination, imperialism, and complicity with the U.S. and the West to destroy Islam—all which make Jew-hatred inevitable.

You inculcate Palestinian children, nearly from birth, with seething, blind, unrelenting, and obsessive hatred of Jews and the 'Zionist regime,' so that kindergartners graduate with blood-soaked hands while toting plastic AK 47s and dedicate their lives to jihad, and older children are recruited to hide explosives on their bodies to transform themselves into shahids -- a new generation of kindling for radical Islam's cult of death.

When Israel launches a military strike against nests of terrorists or in response to ceaseless rocket barrages, you term their response "disproportionate," another escalation in the "cycle of violence," a violation of human rights, aggressive, militaristic, with Apache gunships "pounding" terrorist neighborhoods. Whenever you refer to any attack on Israel by terrorists, or the barrage of thousands of rockets that have rained down on Israel towns for two years from inside Gaza, you characterize them as innocuous, carried out with "crude, homemade, rockets," in order to gloss over their actual lethality.

If you are the Palestinian media, and members of the world media who are either intentionally biased or willing to be duped by anti-Israel propaganda, you repeatedly report on supposed Israeli human rights violations, such as an alleged "massacre of the 21st century," a horrible war crime and example of "genocide" committed by Israel against Palestinians in the village of Jenin.

You talk about the Israeli security barrier as an "apartheid wall," and describe it as a massive, soaring, unbroken division through Palestinian neighborhoods and communities, overlooking the fact that the wall is towering and solid concrete only in those regions that have been repeatedly assaulted by terrorism, and that 90 percent of the hundreds of miles of barrier is comprised merely of wire fence.

You use the "apartheid wall" image to create a broader misconception about the Palestinians living under a South African-style apartheid regime, disingenuously equating race restrictions that blacks lived under in Soweto with the open society of Israel in which Israeli Arabs have more rights than in any Arab state and are asked only not to murder Jews in their midst.

On campuses where a coddled and insulated professoriate often express antipathy for the perceived ills of capitalism, the usurpation of "Palestine" by Israel, "land grabs" through occupation, and the denial of the civil and economic rights of the Palestinians, you contend that Israel´s very existence is not at all about self-determination (something you deem appropriate only for the Palestinians) and all about greed, globalism, colonialism, exploitation, and undeserved political and economic might. No longer able to fight apartheid in South Africa, you now try to transmogrify that racist social system onto Israel, holding rallies and encouraging the signing of petitions which call from divestiture from companies doing business in Israel.

You fund Middle Eastern Studies centers on university campuses and use them as anti-Israel, anti-American "think tanks" where scholarship is tainted with ideology and singularly focused on the Palestinian cause. You fund the active and vocal Muslim Students Association on campuses across the country that hold "Israel Apartheid Week" and "Holocaust in the Holy Land" festivals at which propaganda, Jew-hatred, apologies for terrorism, and further demonizing of Israel takes place.

In the Arab world, you play fast and loose with history in your attempt to create a historical narrative conforming to your own political agenda, erasing any link between Palestine and the Jews. Though Jerusalem is mentioned not once in the Koran and over 669 times in the Jewish Bible, you claim that Jerusalem is now the "third holiest site to Muslims," that, as Yasser Arafat announced at Camp David in 2000, the Temple Mount was never a Jewish site, that Jews now "occupy" Muslim lands, and that the archeological and historical evidence that confirms an uninterrupted 3000-year presence by Jews in the Holy Land is merely a "construct," yet another lie promulgated by Israeli historians and archeologists as way of erasing and obscuring an Islamic past.

If you are in the Muslim world or the netherworld of Jew-haters, you question the actual extent and truthfulness of the Holocaust, first complaining that the Palestinians should not have been made to suffer the loss of their homeland because of the German´s extermination of European Jewry—leading in some part to the creation of Israel—and then at other times questioning whether the Holocaust even occurred and accusing Zionists of using the fictitious event as a way to falsely extract sympathy from the world community and force them into giving Palestine away to the Jews.

If you are in the traditionally Arabist U.S. State Department, or in the "realist" school of diplomacy, or part of the European Union, and you have an insatiable need for oil, you overlook the tyrannies and unfaithfulness of our Middle Eastern "friends," and ask nothing of them, but demand that Israel, the only democracy in a sea of despotism, continually prove its loyalty to us and embrace policies that could potentially threaten their own security. You write academic books questioning the strength of the "Israel Lobby," and wonder out loud if Jewish influence and wealth forces us to lose credibility and threaten our national security on behalf of Israel.

You do all of these things, as part of a concerted effort and also as random, independent efforts on the part of Israel´s enemies, and you do it for the 60 years of Israel´s existence, and then you are shocked, shocked, when Israel is shown to rank unfavorably in surveys which measure the public´s perception of nations and how they compare to one another in the world community. But you are pleased, because you know that if Israel cannot be annihilated with armaments and rockets, perhaps you can make it cease to exist simply by making the entire world loathe it for being what it is.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/70990

Tags: Apartheid, Islamic Apartheid, Israel, Jews, Muslims, racism, Propaganda, Pallywood, UN, Arabism, Anti Israel bigotry

How do anti-humanity 'Palestinian' leaders manage to talk [in the UN, or infiltrating "peace" & "socialists" movements] about "human rights"?

The wonder isn't just about the Islamic Hamas butchers but even when it comes to the "moderate" Fatah that still glorifies mass murderers as "heroes/martyrs" and hosts those hate
sermons that justifies the killing of the infidels on its official TV.

What's "human rights" or "human" about a cult that worships death for its children and for its adversary?

How can one talk about "human rights" when the basic right of surviving of Israelis is in question by most 'Palestinians' (polled) or by its leadership?

Then you have (almost) the entire bigoted Islamo Arab world that again wouldn't give a hood if an Arab 'Palestinian' is OK or not, but the intolerance against the "other", the Israel, never
loses its steam.

Never underestimate the power of 'anti Israel bigotry'! That galvanizes so many that couldn't care less what happens to (any) Arabs, but found one more venue where to hit at innocent Israel and add to it's battered image.

Which explains why you never hear praise, for all amazing and unbelievable efforts by humane Israelis to keep highest respect for human rights [from harsh court and enforcement for any abuse, to easing restrictions in terror infested neighborhoods] of those that seek to harm them, all while despite imperative security of its people who's at cost.

Technorati - Pallywood Human rights Palestinians Terrorism War on terror ISM Israel

How do anti-humanity 'Palestinian' leaders manage to talk [in
the UN, or infiltrating "peace" & "socialists" movements] about "human rights"?

The wonder isn't just about the Islamic Hamas butchers but even when it comes to the "moderate" Fatah that still glorifies mass murderers as "heroes/martyrs" and hosts those hate
sermons that justifies the killing of the infidels on its official TV.

What's "human rights" or "human" about a cult that worships death for its children and for its adversary?

How can one talk about "human rights" when the basic right of surviving of Israelis is in question by most 'Palestinians' (polled) or by its leadership?

Then you have (almost) the entire bigoted Islamo Arab world that again wouldn't give a hood if an Arab 'Palestinian' is OK or not, but the intolerance against the "other", the Israel, never
loses its steam.

Never underestimate the power of 'anti Israel bigotry'! That galvanizes so many that couldn't care less what happens to (any) Arabs, but found one more venue where to hit at innocent Israel and add to it's battered image.

Which explains why you never hear praise, for all amazing and unbelievable efforts by humane Israelis to keep highest respect for human rights [from harsh court and enforcement for any abuse, to easing restrictions in terror infested neighborhoods] of those that seek to harm them, all while despite imperative security of its people who's at cost.

Technorati - Pallywood Human rights Palestinians Terrorism War on terror ISM Israel

Arab Muslim Palestinians' Persecution of Christians

DHIMMITUDE, ISLAMIC APARTHEID

Arab "Palestinian" Christians have been suffering and STILL suffer from Arab "Palestinian" Muslim majority.

Just like the Arab Christian Lebanese in "Damour" (Yasir Arafat´s Planned Christian Genocide http://www.chretiens-et-juifs.org/article.php?voir%5B%5D=594&voir%5B%5D=3532 , Hobeika - Damour http://www.free-lebanon.com/LFPNews/hobeika_damour/hobeika_damour.html), where "Palestinian" Muslims massacred Christians senselessly, which brought the reprisal by Arab Christians upon Arab "Palestinian" Muslims in Sabra & shatila.

The Islamization of Bethlehem that has started by Yasser Arafat has forced Christians out.

The "Palestinian" Christians are forced to join the senseless criminal violence against Israeli victims, otherwise they are threatened.

Some Arab "Palestinians" that might be Christian won't admit the awful truth openly, that scared they are!
But some find courage to break the ranks like: http://shoebat.com/, a "Palestinian" Arab (former terrorist) who converted from Islam, terrorism, hatred & bloodshed to Christianity.Which is why he advocates now for Israel the real victim, exposes the lies and incitement he was exposed to while being Muslim.
Also see: http://arabsforisrael.com/

__________________________________

The truth about Christians in 'Palestine'
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31285

Christian persecution by Arafat
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30299

The Islamization of Bethlehem by Yassir Arafat
http://www.acpr.org.il/cloakrm/clk117.html

Palestinian Authority's Treatment of Christians
http://www.science.co.il/arab-israeli-conflict/articles/Imra-1997-10-30.asp

The Beleaguered Christians of the Palestinian-Controlled Areas, by ...Palestinian Christians have suffered as dhimmis for centuries. ...
http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp490.htm

Christians Fleeing Palestinian Controlled Areas In addition to the economic decline, there were several cases of physical attacks on Christians in Gaza, influenced by Islamist incitement against Israel ...
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/arabs/christianme1.html

Fact Sheets #59: Christians in the Palestinian Authority “The Islamic people want to kill us. That’s their principle and belief. ... Relations between Palestinian Christians and Muslims have deteriorated in the ...
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/talking/59_ChristiansPA.html

Palestinian Christians: Victims, Not Partners
Human Events,  Feb 16, 2004   by Spencer, Robert
E-mail Print Link This week the Chicago Tribune prefaced a series of articles on Islam, including one about how radical Muslims gained control of a large Chicago-area mosque, by reassuring readers that "Islam, the world's fastest-growing religion, preaches tolerance, non-violence and respect for human life."
But this week I interviewed Walid Shoebat, a former PLO terrorist who has become a Christian and has recently been speaking out against jihad ideology. He confirmed something I discussed in Onward Muslim Soldiers: that this talk of tolerance and non-violence is often cultivated by radical Muslims as part of a larger tactical strategy.
Local Muslims say outreach needed Polls find negative view of Islam In the Palestinian Authority, this strategy involved the co-opting of the embattled Palestinian Christian minority into the larger jihadist agenda. With Christians, Shoebat explains "we saw a need for unity." Palestinian Christians were happy to oblige. Most Palestinian Christians, says Shoebat, were "educated on Replacement Theology, in which God was done with Israel and Jews. They were in turn supportive of the Palestinian cause to liberate all Palestine."
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_200402/ai_n9367641

"Palestinians" burn Christian village (Published - 2005)
http://www.christiannewstoday.com/CWN_855.html

Sep 13, 2005 ... World silent after Muslim gang attacks ‘Palestinian’ Christian village ... "And if it's not the members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad, ...
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0905/pipes2005_09_13.php3

Houses torched as Muslim -Christian tensions flare. AKI, 6 Sept 2005
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Religion&loid=8.0.204471774&par=0

Honour killing feud exposes rift between Palestinian Muslims and Christians LARA SUKHTIAN (AP), 7 Sept 2005
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/050905/w090583.html
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Security/6505.htm

Homes razed in mob fury at couple's 'affair'
Chris McGreal in Jerusalem, 5 September 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1562709,00.html

Muslims ransack Christian village
By Khaled Abu Toameh, 6 Sept 2005
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1125831262546

'Islamic mafia' accused of persecuting Holy Land Christians (09 2005)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/09/wmid09.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/09/09/ixworld.html

Denial of Religious Rights by the Palestinian Authority Not just Jews, but Christians have also been victimized by Islamic intolerance for 'infidel' holy sites.
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/reports/Denial_of_Religious_Rights_by_the_Palestinian_Authority.asp

Dhimmi Watch: Fitzgerald: IslamoChristians and Bethlehem
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/010061.php

Islamization of Bethlehem - DRIVE THE INFIDELS OUT & TAKE THEIR LAND AND PROPERTY
http://bethg2.envy.nu/

The Pogrom on Christians
http://www.ourjerusalem.com/press/story/press20051017.html

Anti Christian
http://ww.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19453

Palestinians burn West Bank YMCA Follows Muslim warnings for Christian group
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51909

YMCA warned to vacate Hamas town
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50109

Persecuting the Holy Land's Christians ...
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20583

Expert: 'Christian groups in PA to disappear'
The ever-dwindling Christian communities living in Palestinian-run territories in the West Bank and Gaza are likely to dissipate completely within the next 15 years as a result of increasing Muslim persecution and maltreatment, an Israeli scholar said Monday.
Flames are seen at the entrance of an Anglican church hit by a firebomb in Nablus.
Slideshow: Pictures of the week "The systematic persecution of Christian Arabs living in Palestinian areas is being met with nearly total silence by the international community, human rights activists, the media and NGOs," said Justus Reid Weiner, an international human rights lawyer in an address at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, where he serves as a scholar in residence.
He cited Muslim harassment and persecution as the main cause of the "acute human rights crisis" facing Christian Arabs, and predicted that unless governments or institutions step in to remedy the situation - such as with job opportunities - there will be no more Christian communities living in the Palestinians territories within 15 years, with only a few Western Christians and top clergymen left in the area.
"Christian leaders are being forced to abandon their followers to the forces of radical Islam," Weiner said...
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195546795874&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

_____________

O, Muslim town of Bethlehem (muslim persecution of Bethlehem's Christians)
 The situation has become so desperate that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, are to lead a joint delegation to Bethlehem this week to express their solidarity with the beleaguered Christian populace. The town, according to the Cardinal, is being "steadily strangled". The sense of a creeping Islamic fundamentalism is all around in Bethlehem. A mosque on one side of Manger Square stands directly opposite the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, while in the evening the muezzin's call to prayer clashes with the peal of church bells. Shops selling Santa Claus outfits and mother-of-pearl statuettes of the Virgin Mary have their shutters painted a sun-bleached green, the colour of Islam. And in the Al-Jacir Palace, Bethlehem's only luxury hotel, there is a baubled Christmas tree in reception and a card showing the direction of Mecca in the rooms.

George Rabie, a 22-year-old taxi driver from the Bethlehem suburb of Beit Jala, is proud of his Christianity, even though it puts him in daily danger. Two months ago, he was beaten up by a gang of Muslims who were visiting Bethlehem from nearby Hebron and who had spotted the crucifix hanging on his windscreen. "Every day, I experience discrimination," he says. " "It is a type of racism. We are a minority so we are an easier target. Many extremists from the villages are coming into Bethlehem." Jeriez Moussa Amaro, a 27-year-old aluminium craftsman from Beit Jala is another with first-hand experience of the appalling violence that Christians face. Five years ago, his two sisters, Rada, 24, and Dunya, 18, were shot dead by Muslim gunmen in their own home. Their crime was to be young, attractive Christian women who wore Western clothes and no veil. Rada had been sleeping with a Muslim man in the months before her death.

A terrorist organisation, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, issued a statement claiming responsibility, which said: "We wanted to clean the Palestinian house of prostitutes." Jeriez says: "A Christian man is weak compared to a Muslim man. "They have bigger, more powerful families and they know people high up in the Palestinian authority." The fear of attack has prompted many Christian families to emigrate, including Mr Canawati's sister, her husband and their three children who now live in New Jersey in America. "I want to leave but nobody will buy my business," Mr Canawati says. "I feel trapped. We are isolated." This isolation was heightened when, last year, Bethlehem found itself behind Israel's security wall, a 400-mile-long concrete barrier which separates Jewish and Palestinian areas and is designed to stop suicide bombers - in 2004, half the Israeli fatalities caused by such attacks were committed by extremists from Bethlehem. Last year, tourists trying to get to the town were forced to queue for hours as their papers were checked, while Bethlehem inhabitants going the other way must now apply for an infrequently granted permit to visit Jerusalem, barely ten minutes away by car. "It is like living in a prison," says Shadt Abu-Ayash, a 29-year-old Roman Catholic shopkeeper. The Roman Catholic Mayor of Bethlehem, Dr Victor Batarseh, says: "The political situation in Lebanon and the instability of politics in Palestine has affected tourism and pilgrimage. "Hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops are owned by mostly Christians so it affects them badly. "We have 65 per cent unemployment and about 2,000 bedrooms in hotels that are empty." Bethlehem's hotel owners estimate that tourist numbers have dropped sharply, from 91,276 each month for the millennium celebrations in 2000 to little more than 1,500 a month now.

During the past six years, 50 restaurants, 28 hotels and 240 souvenir shops have closed. Samir Qumsieh is general manager of Al-Mahed - Nativity - which is the only Christian television station in Bethlehem. He has had death threats and visits from armed men demanding three acres of his land - and he is now ready to leave. "As Christians, we have no future here," he says. "We are melting away. Next summer I will leave this country to go to the States. How can I continue? "I would rather have a beautiful dream in my head about what my home is like, not the nightmare of the reality."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=423126&in_page_id=1770

Muslim Palestinians attack Churches & News agency
Catholic Palestinians downplay Muslim attacks on Christian ... Catholic Online, CA - JERUSALEM (CNS) – Christian Palestinians tried to downplay the significance of Muslim attacks on seven Christian churches in the West Bank and Gaza in ...
http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=21317

Palestinians attack more West Bank churches Reuters AlertNet
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1761770.htm

Masked Palestinians Attack News Agency All Headline News - Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - Masked Palestinians Tuesday stormed the central Gaza offices of the official Palestinian Authority news agency, WAFA, destroying all ...
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7004911064

'Palestinian' Militants who in a statement, posted in the name of the Holy Jihad Vow to Target Non-Muslims or infidels to abduct & kill any non-Muslims who visit the 'Palestinian' territories , unless their demands are met.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/02/AR2006090200277.html

Related on 'Islamic apartheid'

The largest practitioner of apartheid on the planet is Islam, in terms of both religious apartheid and gender apartheid
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1724

___

'Convert or Die' - 'Palestinians'

Two journalists Steve Centanni & Olaf Wiig kidnapped by Islamic Palestinians 'Holy Jihad Brigades' were forced to convert to Islam at gun point.

Clip

http://msunderestimated.com/2006/08/31/takin-it-to-the-gaza-streets-with-jennifer-griffin-video

Before the journalists' release, a new video was released, showing Wiig and Centanni dressed in beige Arab-style robes. The kidnappers claimed both men had converted to Islam. "We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint,"...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,210767,00.html

Steve Centanni, 60, an American correspondent, and his freelance cameraman Olaf Wiig ... "Then they forced us to convert to Islam at gunpoint," said Centanni. ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/aug/28/middleeastthemedia.tvnews

Officials: Hamas forcibly converted Christian woman to Islam. Gaza-based professor goes missing for weeks, indicates she is abducted, then surfaces a Muslim ...
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3434253,00.html

'Hamas forced professor to convert' | Middle East | Jerusalem Post Aug 5, 2007 ... Hamas officials strongly denied that they had forced the professor to convert to Islam and accused Fatah of spreading lies designed to ...
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1186066387589

INTERNATIONAL DIGEST: Gaza Christian kidnapped, forced to marry Muslim; ...
Posted on Aug 14, 2007 | by Mark Kelly NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--A Christian university professor in Gaza was kidnapped, forced to marry a Muslim professor at the same university and now her family is being told she wants no contact with them unless they convert to Islam.
Sana al-Sayegh, head of the Science and Technology Department at Gaza City's Palestine International University, disappeared June 24, according to Palestinian Authority officials and the woman's family. Five days later, she contacted her family to say she was being held against her will so she could be married to a Muslim man.
http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=26243

January 2007, Nazareth Muslims: 'Islam will dominate the world', March through town... 'meant to intimidate Christians'
http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53574

Driving the Christians out
Source: The Jerusalem Post
Jan 25, 2007
A few decades ago Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ, was a thriving town, a tourist magnet and a majority Christian town.
Today barely 15 percent of the population is Christian, and according to one of them, "every day we hear of another Christian family that has immigrated to the US, Canada or Latin America."
"I believe," said another, "that 15 years from now there will be no Christians left in Bethlehem. Then you will need a torch to find a Christian here."
The disappearance of Bethlehem's Christian Arabs is not a natural phenomenon; it is the consequence of a concerted effort to bring that potent sympbol of Christendom into submission to Islam.
Resorting to violence, terrorism, brazen land-theft and massive abuse of power, Muslim Arab civilians and Muslim members of the Palestinian Authority are effectively and purposefully driving the Christians away.
No-one cares about the plight of Bethlehem's Christians. And knowing the consequences of themselves publicising the abuse they face, most keep quiet, make their plans, and slip quietly away.
Soon only Muslims will benefit from whatever interest the Christian world retains in Bethlehem.
http://www.jnewswire.com/articles/print/1601

israelinsider: Briefs: Gaza Jihadis justify attack on school ...
Gaza Jihadis justify attack on school, blaming UN "Christian missionaries".
Published: May 9, 2007 ...
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Briefs/11334.htm

Gaza’s Christian Arabs Living in Fear
http://israelforum.com/board/showthread.php?t=11080

Bombs hit Christian bookstore, two Internet cafes in Gaza City …Bombs hit Christian bookstore, two Internet cafes in Gaza City-News and commentary … 11:17 Senior Hamas official: Suicide bombers ruined past peace bids …
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/848535.html

Reuters AlertNet - Bombs hit Christian bookshop, Internet cafe in GazaGAZA, April 15 (Reuters) - Bombs damaged a Christian bookstore and an Internet … Elsewhere in Gaza City, a bomb destroyed an Internet cafe, police said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L15587768.htm

Christians warned: Accept Islamic lawAsked if Hamas is seeking to impose hard-line Islamic law on the Palestinians, al-Zahar responded, … Christian bookstore bombed by terrorists …
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56241

Gaza’s Christians under the Islamic gun Jun 19, 2007 ... There are not very many of them, but Gaza’s Christians are already being singled out for special treatment in the newly-created “Hamastan” ...
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/1978

Washington Times - Hamas control has Gaza's Christians on edge Jun 27, 2007 ... THE WASHINGTON TIMES TEL AVIV — The future of a tiny Christian community in the Gaza Strip is in doubt after the takeover of Gaza by the ...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/jun/27/hamas-control-has-gazas-christians-on-edge/

Palestinian Christian activist stabbed to death in Gaza - Haaretz ...Oct 10, 2007 ... A Palestinian Christian activist who had received repeated death threats was ... The Interior Ministry run by Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas ...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/910184.html

Gaza Christians warned to submit to Islam Jun 19, 2007 .... Gaza-based Muslim groups affiliated with Hamas and possibly Al Qaeda have warned local Christians ...
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=13162

Palestinian Christians fear... Yet Palestinian Christians are also "afraid that Palestine might become an Islamic state", this according to the nuns of Bethlehem's Baby Caritas Hospital, ...
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=2063

Reuters lies about why Christians are fleeing PA areas Reuters on Monday reported matter-of-factly that Israeli oppression is fueling a Christian exodus from Palestinian Authority-controlled areas, ...
http://www.jnewswire.com/articles/print/1774

CAMERA: Reuters fails to root out facts on Palestinian Christians Mar 12, 2007 ... But it’s another matter entirely to read that Palestinian Christians are also free from persecution at the hands of their Muslim neighbors, ...
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=36&x_article=1298

Palestinians burn West Bank YMCA Follows Muslim warnings for Christian group to leave Hamas-controlled town or see violence …
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51909

Palestinians torch Qalqilya YMCA - Israel News, Palestinians torch Qalqilya YMCA. Prior to attack, Christian groups warned to vacate Hamas-controlled West Bank town; identities of attackers known to local …
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3302162,00.html

C4RPME.org: Christian Monastery Attacked in Gaza During the recent fighting in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah, the Christian community in Gaza was also targeted. The Palestinian paper Al-Ayyam reported that …
http://c4rpme.org/bin/articles.cgi?Cat=christians&Subcat=cpa&ID=631

Gaza Christians Wary After Hamas Takeover — 06/19/2007 Hamas is not opposed to Christian worship, said Massad. Christians want to live their faith, he said, but he admitted that they don’t have “full freedom” in …
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200706/INT20070619b.html

Digg - Hamas Destroys Christian School and Church Now that there are no Jews in Gaza and Hamas is in control, they’re beginning the process of driving out the remaining Christians: Gaza’s Christians fear …
http://digg.com/world_news/Hamas_Destroys_Christian_School_and_Church

Gaza Christians Living Under Growing Islamic Threat
CNSNews.com, VA - Aug 16, 2007 Hamas maintains that al-Sayegh's conversion was a matter of personal choice and that it is vigorously protecting the rights of Gaza's Christians, ...
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200708/INT20070816c.html

Hamas control has Gaza’s Christians on edge — The Washington …The Washington Times Foreign: Hamas control has Gaza’s Christians on edge.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070627/FOREIGN/106270072/1001?

‘Hamas forced professor to convert’ | Some 3000 Christians live in the Gaza Strip. Following the Hamas takeover of the Strip, many of them have expressed their desire to leave. …
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1186066387589

Officials: Hamas forcibly converted Christian woman to Islam …Ynet News, Middle East News: Gaza-based professor goes missing for weeks, indicates she is abducted, then surfaces a Muslim.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3434253,00.html

Hamas pressing Gaza Christians to become MuslimsThe Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip are pressuring local Christians to either become Muslims or leave the area, according to Palestinian officials who spoke …
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=13738?

Eye On The World: Hamas demands Christians adopt Islam or leave
http://eye-on-the-world.blogspot.com/2007/08/hamas-demands-christians-adopt-islam-or.html

Christian Persecution Blog: Hamas Turns on Gaza Christians, This morning I was reading in Israel Today a brief story about how Hamas has turned on Gaza Christians over the weekend. Here’s the story in its entirety …
http://www.persecutionblog.com/2007/06/hamas_turns_on_.html

Leaders of Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror groups in Bethlehem also told WND they were not aware of any al-Qaida elements in Bethlehem.
Local Christian leaders speaking to WND said they cannot confirm any al-Qaida groups present in Bethlehem, but stated they are concerned by what they said was growing radicalization and militancy among Palestinian groups who reportedly have been targeting Christians in the city...
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55718

Christian activist slain in Hamas controlled Gaza Oct 8, 2007 ... The body of Rami Khader Ayyad, a prominent Palestinian Christian activist, ... Ayyad had been threatened by Islamic extremists in the past. ...
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Terror+Groups/Christian+activist+slain+in+Hamas+controlled+Gaza+8-Oct-2007.htm

Christian Bookstore Owner Was Tortured Before His Death - October ...Oct 11, 2007 ... The body of Rami Ayyad, director of Gaza's only Christian bookstore, ... Ayyad had told relatives he was receiving death threats from Islamists.
http://www.nysun.com/foreign/christian-bookstore-owner-was-tortured-before-his/64354/

Pressure Intensifies for Gaza Christians - Christian World News ...Aug 1, 2008 ... Islamic extremists are continuing efforts to eradicate Christians and their institutions.
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/420931.aspx

Re: Pallywood's 'Free Gaza Boat'

The Anti Freedom for anyone ab-uses the 'freedom' banner by being cruel to their own people to inflict destitute so they can be used to propagate.

August 2008

Pallywood was always good in 'language', from their frequent use of "freedom" to "resistance", while the siege on little Israel by its racist Arab neighbors goes on already for over 60 years, and recently Sderot under [real] siege from Gaza - Hamastan's missiles (Shall we call the missiles upon civilians intended to murder as "freedom missiles"?, those rockets that have a double edge sword, to harm innocent Israelis which Palestinain Hamas is bend on, plus to cause a defensive actions from Israel's security concerned forces to restrict Hamastan thus their beloved 'victim card' can have more teeth,) yet, it's rather the anti freedom (for anyone) the Islamic Hamas, that succeeded again in yet another "freedom" slogan, 'Free Gaza', those that seek to live and have their people live in misery to gain world's sympathy, have hit a jackpot, especially with some gullible "peace" activists.

The Gaza Boat Protest 

 

1. Prior to the boats� arrival along the Gaza coast:

 

a. Israel is closely monitoring the flotilla. This action constitutes an intentional provocation. Consequently, Israel will do everything it can to prevent it.

 

b. In accordance with the Interim Agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which was supported by the international community, the Israel Navy is exclusively responsible for the safety and security of the maritime zones off the coast of Gaza.
2. In the event that the boats will be allowed to proceed to Gaza:

 

a. The campaign is orchestrated by a handful of agitators who tried to draw the State of Israel into a confrontation in the open sea, with broad media coverage. This is not an expression of concern for the residents of the Gaza Strip, but rather a political protest that serves only the Hamas and terrorism.

 

b. This campaign is an intentional provocation undertaken by organizations and activists, some of whom have a long history of employing provocative tactics. Such groups, though flying the banner of human rights, are troublingly silent in the face of the gross violations perpetrated by Hamas which have caused so much suffering to Israelis and Palestinians alike. This action, which seeks to grant legitimacy to the Hamas terrorist regime, is immoral and flies in the face of the clearly stated position of the international community.

 

c. Israel continues to reserve its right to determine regarding entry into the Gaza Strip. In this case, Israel merely decided not to be dragged into the provocation that the protesters so eagerly sought to instigate.

 

d. Israel's policy remains unchanged, and it will continue to examine each case upon its merits.

 

3. Israel's humanitarian policy towards Gaza:

 

Despite ongoing Hamas terrorism and attacks against the inland crossing points, Israel permits the transfer of large quantities of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip on a daily basis, and allows the passage of patients and accompanying individuals into Israel, and the West Bank for medical treatment. Consequently, there is no justification for this provocation.

 

4. Israel�s security policy vis-�-vis the Gaza Strip:

 

The Gaza Strip under the Hamas regime has become a terrorist entity. Hamas smuggles and manufactures arms in a military buildup that is continuing despite the current state of calm, in blatant violation of the understandings laid out in the Egyptian initiative which established the calm.

http://www.israelated.com/node/50743

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