Broken Movement

patchs

Have had a few days & evenings for myself recently...

and been checking Hemaworstje and ILYS...

Un Rafale s'écrase?

D’après les premiers éléments de l’enquête, La terre ferme française serait volontairement entrée en collision avec un Rafale piloté par un jeune qui ne portait pas de casque.

Le Parti socialiste, le MRAP, SOS Racisme, demandent que toute la lumière soit faite sur ce terrible événement, qui s’ajoute aux drames similaires survenus il y a 2 semaines.

Bilan léger mais tout de même surprenant après ces fêtes de Hanoukka : une soufgania a été retrouvée assassinée dans une rue de Jérusalem. La police est sur la piste d’un résident de Jérusalem-est, bien évidement…

heu...what was I on about?

Ah yes, got to do my Christmas shopping before I got back to the UK next week.

can't wait to be threre...

Le sionisme musulman

"Le musulman doit necessairement se conformer aux Coran par la reconnaissance du droit légitime d'Israel à l'existence dans sa region . Reconnaissance RELIGIEUSE!"

Tel est le message d'entrée d'un blog créé par un musulman francophone ami d'Israël :
http://amlou.weblogg.no/

The Temple Mount Desecration

The Muslim Wakf is digging up and destroying the remnants of the Second Temple, while simultaneously denying that the Holy Temple ever existed




http://www.yideoz.com/view_video.php?viewkey=76845cd235b6a510c690

Chrétiens de Palestine: Pourquoi Jérusalem doit rester à jamais sous contrôle israélien (Why Jerusalem should forever remain under Israeli control)

S’ils m’ont persécuté, ils vous persécuteront vous aussi. Jésus (Jean 15 :20)

La situation est tragique mais les forces en présence au Moyen-Orient font qu’au long terme, Israël, comme autrefois les Royaumes francs, finira par disparaître. Cette région a toujours rejeté les corps étrangers.

Dominique Galouzeau de Villepin (Paris, automne 2001)

J’ai une prémonition qui ne me quittera pas : ce qui adviendra d’Israël sera notre sort à tous. Si Israël devait périr, l’holocauste fondrait sur nous.

Eric Hoffer

Si Israël est un occupant dans son pays, le christianisme, qui tire sa légitimité de l’histoire d’Israël, l’est aussi comme le serait tout autre État infidèle.

Bat Ye’or

C’était une cité fortement convoitée par les ennemis de la foi et c’est pourquoi, par une sorte de syndrome mimétique, elle devint chère également au cœur des Musulmans.

Emmanuel Sivan

Le vrai visage de l’islam se dévoile lorsqu’il est appliqué intégralement… or, l’islam ne peut croître que voilé… du moins en terre à conquérir.

Elizabeth Richard

Dire que l’islamisme n’est pas l’islam, qu’il n’a rien à voir avec l’islam, est faux. Pour le musulman d’hier et d’aujourd’hui il n’y a qu’un seul Coran comme il n’y a qu’un seul prophète. L’islamiste est autant musulman que le mystique car il s’appuie sur ces deux fondements. Et dans ces deux fondements il y a l’appel au combat. Ici-bas la guerre pour la victoire de l’islam doit être poursuivie tant que l’islam n’est pas entièrement victorieux. La paix n’est envisageable que si la victoire paraît, pour le moment, impossible ou douteuse …

Anne-Marie Delcambre

En Terre sainte, les populations chrétiennes de Bethlehem, Nazareth et Jérusalem ont émigré sous la coercition après des décennies où le gouvernement palestinien s’est entendu pour extorquer la propriété des propriétaires fonciers chrétiens. L’exode (et la chute des taux de natalité) des chrétiens dans le Moyen-Orient est un phénomène bien documenté et analysé depuis le siècle dernier (…) Le Moyen-Orient est purgé d’une diversité historiquement enrichissante dont l’existence à long terme est pratiquement condamnée. Ce qui restera est une menace homogène et auto-proclamée pour le reste du monde… les pathologies et les méthodes dirigées contre des minorités non protégées seront employées ensuite contre d’autres musulmans et gouvernements. Il n’est pas exagéré de suggérer que les violences contre ces chrétiens locaux sont perçues avec raison comme l’avenir de ce qui attend le reste du monde. Daniel Henninger

Acharnement sur cafés Internet, magasins de musique et autres lieux associés avec la culture occidentale, couvent catholique mis à sac, école religieuse également vandalisée …
Et maintenant, après les nombreuses menaces de mort et un engin incendiaire lancé contre sa boutique, enlèvement puis sauvage assassinat du directeur (baptiste) de la seule librairie chrétienne de Gaza …

Pour ceux qui n’auraient toujours pas compris que l’islam est bien la religion d’amour, de tolérance et de paix (RATP) que ses partisans se tuent (y compris littéralement!) à dire …
Et non la gigantesque entreprise d’épuration ethnique et de captation d’héritage des prétendues “religions du Livre” qui a commencé au VIIe siècle avec une Arabie “judenrein” et “kristianrein” dès 640 et que s’obstinent à rappeler certains esprits chagrins …

Petit retour sur la réalité, depuis la prise de pouvoir du Hamas en juin dernier, de la vie quotidienne de la petite minorité chrétienne de Gaza (3.200 pour 1,4 million de musulmans).
Ou plutôt, pour parler comme un certain Villepin et vu que leur existence n’est guère plus assurée dans le reste des territoires palestiniens (ou… du monde!), de la petite “parenthèse” de ce que, sans parler du judaïsme, quelque 2000 ans de christianisme avaient coutume d’appeler “Terre sainte” …

Assassinat d’une figure de la communauté chrétienne de la bande de GazaLa CroixLe 08-10-2007
Un responsable de la communauté chrétienne de la Bande de Gaza a été retrouvé assassiné dimanche 7 octobre. Cette communauté est de plus en plus inquiète pour sa sécurité depuis que le Hamas a pris le pouvoir dans le territoire
Rami Khader Ayyad, 32 ans, directeur de la seule librairie chrétienne de Gaza, a été découvert mort dans une rue, dimanche 7 octobre à l’aube. Le corps portait des traces de balles à la tête, et la victime, disparue depuis samedi après-midi, avait été poignardée à de nombreuses reprises, selon un responsable de l’hôpital Shifa.
La victime était proche d’un groupe chrétien, la Société palestinienne de la Bible. Ayyad avait reçu de nombreuses menaces de mort anonymes et un engin incendiaire avait été lancé contre sa boutique en avril.
Quelque 3.200 chrétiens vivent à Gaza, où les musulmans sont 1,4 million. Cette petite communauté est de plus en plus inquiète depuis que le Mouvement de la résistance islamique a pris le pouvoir en juin. Pendant les combats, un couvent catholique a été mis à sac et une école religieuse adjacente a été également vandalisée.
“Il est trop tôt pour parler du motif de ce crime”
Si les nouveaux maîtres de Gaza ont tout mis en oeuvre pour rassurer les chrétiens, ces derniers craignent que les extrémistes les plus violents ne se déchaînent après l’arrivée aux commandes du Hamas. Des attaques menées par des groupuscules obscurs, dont un certain “Glaive de la justice”, ont ces derniers mois visé les cafés Internet, magasins de musique et autres lieux associés avec la culture occidentale.
Vendredi 5 octobre, Rami Kahder Ayyad avait constaté qu’il était suivi par une voiture sans plaques d’immatriculation, a expliqué Simon Azazian, porte-parole de la Société de la Bible à Jérusalem. Enlevé après la fermeture de son magasin samedi, il a appelé sa famille pour dire qu’il serait libéré dans la soirée, mais son cadavre a été retrouvé le lendemain matin. Il avait deux enfants en bas âge et son épouse était enceinte.
“Je suis terrifié et ne peux pas croire que ça s’est passé”, soupirait Issa, chrétien de 24 ans venu présenter ses condoléances à la famille.
“Il est trop tôt pour parler du motif de ce crime”, a déclaré Hussam Tawil, député palestinien représentant les chrétiens de Gaza. Quant à Ismaïl Haniyeh, premier ministre du gouvernement Hamas de Gaza, il a fait part de sa “grande tristesse”, et rappelé les “relations fortes entre chrétiens et musulmans, membres d’une même nation palestinienne”.
L’un des rares protestants du territoire
Dans un communiqué, la famille a également “souligné l’unité du peuple palestinien, musulmans et chrétiens, qui luttent ensemble depuis des décennies”.
De son côté, le custode de Terre Sainte Pierbattista Pizzaballa, interrogé par le Service italien d’information religieuse (SIR), parle d’un climat de plus en plus pesant pour les chrétiens de la bande de Gaza, “même si on ne peut parler d’hostilité directe” ni de “persécution contre les chrétiens comme en Irak”. “Les autorités sont généralement ouvertes et tolérantes, mais n’ont pas le contrôle des mouvements et des groupes qui parfois veulent être plus royalistes que le roi (…). Plus d’un changement de climat politique, il s’agit de groupuscules devenus fous qui veulent trouver une crédibilité aux yeux de certaines strates de la population musulmane”.
Et d’avertir : “Si la situation politique ne s’améliore pas, il y aura hélas d’autres faits de ce genre, qui rendent la présence des chrétiens toujours plus difficile en Terre Sainte”.
La plupart des chrétiens de Gaza sont orthodoxes, un petit nombre sont catholiques. Ayyad, baptiste, était l’un des très rares protestants du territoire. Il a été inhumé dans le cimetière orthodoxe, les baptistes n’ayant pas leur propre lieu. Plus d’un millier de personnes, dont de nombreux musulmans, ont assisté à ses funérailles.
La-croix.com avec AP

Introducing the "peace scarf"

Urban Outfitters & Palestinian solidarity activists called their kaffiyeh an “anti-war scarf.” Delias.com gives it the Orwellian name: “Peace Scarf.”






I don’t see plenty of kaffiyehs around Jerusalem, but the ones I see are draped around two groups of people: Arabs and the ubiquitous foreign, non-Jewish, non-Arab, Palestinian solidarity activists.
Now let's look at those Palestinian solidarity activists.
For them the kaffiyeh is only partly an expression of identification with the Palestinian cause - the other part, perhaps the greater part, is sticking a thumb into the eye of the State of Israel, the Zionist enterprise, and every Jewish Israeli man, woman and child they pass on the street. It’s a cheap way of screaming, “Look at me, you Zionist apartheid pigs!” while they take advantage of the many amenities those selfsame Zionist apartheid pigs brought to the region.

Let’s paint a portrait of the typical Palestinian solidarity activist:
they are American or Europeen.
They are white.
They are rarely either Jewish or Arab.
They are upper-middle-class to upper class.
They are in their 20s.
They are well-educated, although their knowledge of the history of Jews, Zionism, Palestinians and Arabs are often sorely lacking or at least filtered through the bottleneck of standard far left-wing intellectual ideology.
Their Western social mores, their use of alcohol and sometimes drugs, their uncovered hair and their foreign ideologies often clash very sharply with the conservative, traditional and highly religious Islamic areas in which they find themselves (which confuses them, because after all, they think they’re helping).
They can be found kicking back in downtown Tel Aviv or Jerusalem after a long day at a Hevron checkpoint or a Rafah refugee camp, knocking back bottles of Taybeh, the Palestinian beer, because a shot of whiskey or a Goldstar would represent an inexcusable betrayal of the Cause and an inappropriate monetary endorsement of Zio-nazism.
They don’t know any Israelis, except the pet Israelis their particular solidarity movement of choice keeps around to deflect any charges of anti-Israelism or anti-Semitism, who are about as representative of general Israeli society as a cold bottle of Taybeh is of general Palestinian society.
They swap stories about protesting house demolitions, and sharing moments with their newfound Palestinian charges.
By day, they like to get into the action, the heavy stuff - the checkpoint monitoring, the picture-taking, the meetings with Palestinian activists, standing in front of bulldozers, throwing rocks at riot police at that day’s camera-ready anti-security barrier demonstration. Somehow they’ve gotten it into their heads, counter to all logic, that an effective way to help the Palestinians is to persistently scream at, physically harrass and in general hamper the efforts of a few 19-year-old kids in uniform who can’t legally do anything to stop them, 19-year-old kids already unduly stressed by the long hours and high risks of checkpoint duty, who just want to be at home with their family and friends and their bed and their mom’s cooking. Children of privilege, they are irrationally convinced that their Americanness and their whiteness ensures that nothing worse than being dragged away from a riot zone will ever happen to them, that they are somehow immune to the vagaries of the very real war in which they’ve embroiled themselves - and as such, react with utter shock and rage after the extremely rare occurences wherein one of their number stands in front of a moving bulldozer and gets run over, or walks into a live fire zone and gets shot.

So why do they come?
Certainly they have a passion for justice, sometimes universal justice, sometimes only justice insofar as it extends to their favorite revolutionary group.
But why do they come to Israel specifically, whose conflict with the Palestinians, when looked at objectively and in light of all current world conflict, is pretty low on the worldwide scale of violence, brutality and injustice (which is not to say that those things don’t exist here).
Why do we see so many people willing to go to the Palestinian Territories and next to none willing to go to Tibet or Darfur, both current instances of real live genocide and ethnic cleansing?
Why do they not march on Beijing?
Why do they not rally at the DMZ in Korea?
Why do they not distribute food and medicine and education to malnourished AIDS-infected children in sub-Saharan Africa?

Simple: those places are highly dangerous, often take a much dimmer view towards foreign interlopers than the Israeli government and army, don’t get hyperactive media attention and in general aren’t developed Western nations with clubs and comprehensive bus service and youth hostels and plentiful bars.
Where else but Israel can you feel like a hero fighting against an army who will go out of its way to make sure you come to no serious harm?
Where else can you go from fighting the Man in a refugee camp to a hamburger and a beer in a nice restaurant in a clean and modern city where everyone speaks English, all in the space of a couple hours at most?
Where else can you mug for the international news cameras at an anti-security barrier protest in Bethlehem and send all your friends back home, who think you’re so brave, the link to the CNN Video that has you throwing a rock at a cop, or the Indymedia article about your fearless exploits?
You think you can do that in Zimbabwe?
Why would you risk a long stay in a cell in a Chinese jail if you can get easy glory, relative safety and cheap hashish all in one place?
Look, I know a lot of these guys and girls are perfectly nice, well-meaning people who just haven’t been exposed to, or have purposely avoided, any sort of nuance.
And I know some of them are doing genuinely good work.
I’m not a right-wing zealot.
I support the creation of a Palestinian state.
I want the Palestinian people to succeed economically and culturally, as long as the Jews can have a safe and secure state beside them.
But I’m honestly really sick of seeing the Palestinian people’s self-proclaimed advocates walking around in those damn scarves ignorant of what they might mean to anybody here, interested only in making a callow “statement,” wearing their uber-chic radicalism around their neck in the Holy City.
Take your kaffiyehs and go home.

Via Jewlicious & LGF

Que fait l UNESCO?

Lors de la période de deuil des trois semaines, observée entre les jeûnes du 17 Tamouz et du 9 Av, Ticha BeAv, on commémore la tragédie vécue par le peuple juif lorsque des armées ennemies ont envahi la ville sainte de Jérusalem et ont détruit le Temple. La première fois, la capitale a été investie par les Babyloniens et la seconde fois par les Romains. Il ne reste plus que l’un des murs qui entouraient le sanctuaire, le Kotel, qui est devenu un lieu de pèlerinage pour les Juifs.
Le Har Habayit, emplacement du Temple, a été reconquis par Tsahal lors de la guerre des Six Jours mais il n’a pas été placé sous souveraineté israélienne. La gestion des lieux saints, où se trouvent à présent la mosquée Al Aqsa et le dôme du Rocher, a été confiée au Waqf musulman.
Des groupes de Juifs montent régulièrement sur le Mont du Temple après s’être purifiés conformément à la tradition. L’un d’entre eux, qui s’est rendu lundi sur l’esplanade, a découvert avec stupéfaction que les Arabes continuaient leurs fouilles sous terre et détruisaient les vestiges juifs qui s’y trouvaient.
Le site NRG, de Maariv, qui rapporte cette information, précise que les Arabes ont creusé une galerie de 200 mètres depuis l’aile nord de la colline jusqu’à son centre. Il souligne que bien que la police affirme que ces travaux sont effectués avec l’accord des autorités, soi-disant pour installer des câbles électriques, il s’avère que tout ce qui est sorti du sous-sol dans ces fouilles est systématiquement détruit ou dans le meilleur des cas, jeté aux ordures.
Le mouvement en faveur de la reconstruction du Temple a pris des clichés des lieux. Ses membres ont indiqué que les vestiges du lieu le plus sacré du judaïsme étaient régulièrement détruits sans que personne n’intervienne. Et d'ajouter: "Les droits élémentaires du peuple juif, comme par exemple des prières ou l’introduction d’un livre saint, ne sont pas respectés (sur le Mont du Temple). Et ne parlons pas d’organiser sur place un office".
Le mouvement a appelé à une présence juive permanente sur le Mont du Temple, incitant le public à se rendre sur les lieux conformément à la loi juive (Halaha). Par ailleurs, il a engagé la population à se joindre à la marche traditionnelle autour des murailles de la Vieille Ville, qui a lieu tous les débuts de mois.

http://a7fr.com/tabid/52/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/37565/Default.aspx

in english:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1184168564172&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The Columbus Dispatch Mutilates a LA Times Jerusalem Feature

How do you fit a feature article of more than 4,500 words into a space of less than 2,000 words?
The Columbus Dispatch’s June 10, 2007 publication of “Who owns Jerusalem?”,
a drastically shortened version of a June 3 feature by the Los Angeles Times, “A holy city still divided,” is a prime example of what not to do.
The original Times piece, by Jerusalem correspondents Ken Ellingwood and Richard Boudreaux had its own faults, but its shortcomings paled in comparison to the Dispatch’s hackneyed rendering of the relatively balanced original work.
The Columbus editors expunged humanizing Israeli accounts but preserved those concerning Arabs while deleting references to Arab responsibility for the ongoing de facto divisions of the holy city.

Period of Coexistence Ignored
The Columbus Dispatch glosses over the period of coexistence and mingling following the city’s reunification, which came to an end due to Arab violence in the late 1980s. In the Times version, an Israeli woman, Madlene Vanunu, discussed this point in a first-person account. Her humanizing testimony, excised by the Dispatch, follows:
Madlene Vanunu spent her youth on Israel’s side of the barbed wire that once carved Jerusalem into Israeli and Jordanian halves.
“We used to see the Arabs through the fence. Sometimes we would talk. Sometimes they said, ‘Good morning.’ Other times they threw stones,” said Vanunu, who is 58 and still lives in the same house in the working-class Musrara neighborhood.
When the fence came down, it was just a five-minute walk to the spice-scented lanes of the Old City.
“In the years after the war, we went to the Old City every Saturday,” said Vanunu, who works in the municipal art gallery in West Jerusalem. “We would go to restaurants, meet with people and talk.”
But in the 20 years since the first Palestinian intifada, she has been there only once, and then with fear. The six years of on-and-off clashes that began in 1987 drove the two sides apart. The [Arab] violence became a turning point in their relations.
No mention of Vanunu appears in the Dispatch report. All that is retained from this section of the Times report is:
Today secular Jews rarely venture into East Jerusalem’s traffic-choked downtown near the Old City. Observant Jews still walk through the Old City’s Muslim quarter on their way to worship and study, but they have been assaulted.
Israeli Couple Cut
Hillel and Shlomit Mali, a young couple who moved into the Arab populated Mount of Olives section of Jerusalem, get the same treatment as Vanunu. They, like Vanunu, exhibited neighborly coexistence, which was met by Arab hostility. But the Dispatch chose to delete Ellingwood and Boudreaux’s humanizing story about them, reporting only that the “arrival of the Jewish families set off riots, followed by an icy coexistence and made the red-roofed apartment house on Mansouriyeh Street a microcosm of the struggle of Jerusalem.” Here is what did not make the cut:
Hillel and Shlomit Mali could hardly have picked a less welcoming place to settle as newlyweds. They arrived three months after the first Jews moved into the building. Their new home was directly upstairs from Mahmoud, his wife, mother and four children.
Unlike Elad’s instrusive security agents, Hillel, a 24-year-old musician, and Shlomit, a 23-year-old graduate student of literature, were solicitous and polite. Though it is assertive in acquiring property, Elad says it tries to minimize backlash by choosing settlers who are not confrontational.
Soon after the couple moved in, Hillel phoned downstairs to introduce himself in rudimentary Arabic. Mahmoud hung up and still won’t speak to the couple.
The Malis sent sweets on the Jewish holiday of Purim. Mahmoud’s mother, Fatima, tossed them into the garbage.
Saturday mornings, when the Jews pray in their top-floor synagogue, the Abu Hawas tune in a radio broadcast of Muslim prayers and turn up the volume. Neighborhood children stone the Jewish apartments and smash the cameras installed by 24-hour armed guards who watch the building from a control room just off the stairwell.
“They try to be nice,” Fatima said. “But they were the reason my son was killed. [See below.] They took my house. How can I accept them? I want to make their lives miserable so that they will leave.”
Yet they remain. Forty years after the war, Hillel and Shlomit embody the unfulfilled aspiration of a united Jerusalem under Jewish control.
“I try to talk with my neighbors,” said Hillel, taking in a spectacular view of the contested holy sites from his roof. “Sometimes this is a very hard mission. But if I don’t do this, if I leave the Mount of Olives, I fail.”
Mahmoud would consider the battle won.
“The Israelis say to me, ‘Shalom,’ but I never say anything back because, honestly, there can be no relationship with these people, no peace. They fight you with their weapons, with their money, with everything.
“They’re trying to take over this whole area, all these houses, and kick us out. We say, ‘No way.’”
One Israeli Account Retained
There is, however, one Israeli whose personal story the Dispatch considers worth retaining: that of Moshe Amirav, one of the paratroopers who captured eastern Jerusalem from Jordanian troops in 1967. Amirav’s present-day stance is highly critical of Israel’s presence in the eastern part of the Jerusalem, and his message conforms with the Dispatch’s simplistic narrative that Israeli policies are to be blamed for a reunification in name only. The Dispatch recounts:
By annexing East Jerusalem, an exuberant Israel bit off too much, said Amirav, now head of the public policy department at Beir Berl College.
“The notion of a united city does not exist anymore,” he said.
Lengthy Palestinian Stories Preserved
In contrast to the total deletion of any reference to the humanizing stories about Israelis Vanunu and the Malis, the humanizing testimonies of three Palestinian families are largely preserved in the Dispatch version. No Palestinians are erased like Madlene, Hillel and Shlomit.
Indeed, the detailed story about the aforementioned abu Hawa family, the unreceptive Arab neighbors of Hillel and Shlomit Mali, is mostly retained. It begins dramatically:
At 2 o’clock one morning last spring, Mahmoud abu Hawa awoke in his house on the Mount of Olives to the sound of banging on the door.
He was horrified to learn that his new neighbors were Jews.
They arrived escorted by dozens of armed security agents, he recalls. Even though it was the middle of the night, men from Elad, a Jewish settlers group, rousted the 44-year-old Palestinian tour-bus driver from his sleep and insisted on talking to him. Abu Hawa watched in disbelief as they opened a suitcase on his children’s bed. It contained about $300,000 in cash.
The story continues in this vein, including:
Working through a Jordan-based company, Elad signed a deal to pay Mahmoud abu Hawa and two of his brothers $900,000 for their building. Mahmoud said they thought they were selling to Arabs, but he became suspicious and backed out; his brothers Khalil and Mohammed took the money.
Two weeks later, Mohammed was found dead in the West Bank city of Jericho, shot eight times at close range.
Other than excluding any mention of the “solicitous and polite” Malis, what else does the Dispatch leave out about the abu Hawas? How about who, exactly, shot Mohammed, and why? The Times reports, but the Dispatch doesn’t:
The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a Palestinian militant group, claimed responsibility. Mahmoud thinks his brother, who left six children, may have been killed not for selling but for trying to expose the Arab middlemen who deceived him. [CAMERA notes: Mahmoud’s supposed theory is nonsensical. Why would the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade object to the exposure of deceptive Arab middlemen? The Brigades opposes the sale of Arab property to Jews.]
In addition, the family-owned restaurant has been burned since the sale and Mahmoud has suffered a heart attack.
Surely, intimidation and even murder on the part of a Palestinian terror group is a significant factor to weigh in light of Mahmoud’s words: “Nobody in this neighborhood will sell voluntarily to Israeli Jews. Never.”
Another important piece of deleted information undercuts the storyline of Jewish trespassing on Arab terrain:
Elad’s founder, David Beeri, discovered in the 1980s that some Holy Basin properties had been purchased by Jews before the 1948 war and that the deeds were being held by the Jewish National Fund, a major custodian of land in Israel. [The Mount of Olives where the abu Hawas and the Malis live is in the Holy Basin.]
In addition to the personal story of the abu Hawa family, the Dispatch preserves most of an extensive account of Kamil and Suad Saou and their demolished home in eastern Jerusalem. This section constitutes a significant portion of the entire feature. Readers get details about the Saou’s crushed olive, almond, apricot and lemon seedlings; their children returning from school to a pile of rubble, and the view from their kitchen window.
What did the Dispatch cut out from the Saou saga? Omitted are crucial details that undercut the picture of an unreasonable, brutish Israel victimizing hapless Palestinians, such as the fact that in the face of Palestinian appeals, the municipality backed down from demolishing 27 homes without permits; that “the family missed a deadline for renewing its permit application,” and:
According to Meir Margalit, a former Jerusalem city councilman who opposes demolitions, Palestinians have constructed more than 1,000 homes a year in East Jerusalem in this decade, more than 90% of them without permits. The most torn down in a single year was 152.
Palestinians have fended off the bulldozers with Israeli help.
Israeli courts routinely delay demolition orders. The Israeli press has given sympathetic coverage to Palestinian protests, such as a peaceful sit-in two years ago that forced the city to call off plans to destroy 88 homes in one neighborhood. Many Israelis oppose the demolitions on humanitarian grounds or object to the diversion of large number of police to protect the wrecking crews. . .
“You have anarchic growth in East Jerusalem,” [said lawyer Daniel Seidemann].
Similarly, the story of Palestinian builder Ibrahim Dakkak, who in 1967 “huddled with his family under their kitchen table and listened to the sound of combat” is kept intact in the Dispatch version. His humanizing personal account includes the details:
Fearful of being discovered by Israeli troops, Dakkak’s wife muffled the cries of their year-old son by cramming a tomato into his mouth. . . .
“I felt defeated,” said Dakkak, now 78.
Arab Responsibility Deleted
The Dispatch cuts out critical background information which points to an Arab role for the divided nature of the city.
Israel offered citizenship to Palestinians in East Jerusalem after the war, but few accepted. The rest were given the status of Jerusalem residents who can work in Israel and must pay Israeli taxes. They also can run and vote in municipal elections, and their numbers would give them significant clout. But they have largely boycotted city politics. [CAMERA notes: In other words, if they exercised their right for representation, they would have a more significant say in the matters that concern them, such as funding and services. The demographically similar ultra-Orthodox population, much of which also does not recognize the idea of a sovereign Jewish state, nevertheless acknowledges the pragmatic advantage to be had by participating in local politics, and therefore enjoys the benefits.]
“If we accept to have elections in East Jerusalem under the umbrella of Israeli law, it means that we recognize the legitimacy of the annexation,” said Ziad Abu Zayyad, a former Palestinian Cabinet minister who edits a journal on Israeli-Palestinian affairs.
In the 1990s, interim peace accords enshrined Palestinian demands that residents of Jerusalem be allowed to vote and run in elections for the Palestinian Authority. That helped reinforce a non-Israeli identity.
“We failed to bring the Arabs to the idea that they are part of Jerusalem,” said Rivlin, the lawmaker. “And when we let them vote for the Palestinians election, we let them declare that they are not part of Israel.”
The severe violence of the second intifada, which erupted in 2000, made the chasm seem unbridgeable.
Vanunu said she favored a more conciliatory line toward Arabs, but she wondered when she would feel comfortable strolling in the Old City again. Last time, on the Yom Kippur holiday four years ago, “I went trembling,” she said.
“These days, I hear more and more voices saying they don’t want us here, that they want to throw us into the sea, she said. “It is when I stop hearing these voices that I may go to East Jerusalem again.”
This passage highlights the Arab refusal to take part in their own municipal government, compounded with Arab violence against and hostility towards Jews, both significant factors contributing to the city’s de facto division.
Conclusion
To be sure, passages and sentences from the original Los Angeles Times feature that reinforce the Arab notion Israel is a brutal occupier of the oppressed Arab residents are also deleted. Nevertheless, that view, as expressed by Ibrahim Dabbak, Kamil and Suad Saou, Moaz Zatari, Mahmoud and Fatima abu Hawa, and aided by Moshe Amirav, is the overwhelming narrative of the Dispatch’s version.
As Dabbak observes about Israel’s victory in 1967, “We were talking two completely different languages. They were thinking they were liberating the land, and we were thinking they were occupying the land.”
In the Dispatch’s lopsided editing of the Times story, only one side was allowed to do the talking. The other, represented by Madlene Vanunu and Hillel and Shlomit Mali, was completely muted.

by Tamar Sternthal

Lettre d’un Français de l’Etranger à ses compatriotes en métropole.

(...)

la France souffre d’une grave crise identitaire qui n’ose pas dire son nom. Les revendications ethniques, communautaires et religieuses deviennent plus pressantes bien qu’en contradiction avec les valeurs de la laïcité et les fondements de la République ?

(...)

« Comment vous considérez-vous tout d’abord, comme un citoyen de votre pays ou un musulman ? ». Telle est la question posée lors d’une enquête portant sur l’identité religieuse et culturelle de Musulmans en Europe (7). Les réponses ont été les suivantes : en Grande-Bretagne 81% se considèrent tout d’abord comme musulmans et 7% comme des Britanniques, en Allemagne 66% se considèrent comme musulmans et 13% comme Allemands et en France 46% se considèrent comme musulmans et 42% comme Français.En France, la laïcité est devenue le credo moderne, la civilisation des loisirs a pris le pas sur la pratique religieuse, le monde occidental sécularisé se trouve aujourd’hui confronté avec un monde islamique qui renoue avec son fondamentalisme.La loi sur la séparation de l’Église et de l’État promulguée en 1905 a contribué incontestablement à donner à la France son image de patrie de la tolérance. Cette loi respectée par les Chrétiens, les Juifs et les Musulmans modérés risque-elle aujourd’hui d’être remise en question par la montée de l’intégrisme islamique ? En France, la religion fait partie du domaine privé et la foi est vécue individuellement. Par contre, l’Islam est une religion de groupe, ses idéaux ne peuvent se réaliser qu’au sein de communautés. Il existe différents courants dans l’Islam qui sont apparemment opposés les uns aux autres, mais lorsque l’Occident s’attaque à l’Islam, ces courants se retrouvent unis dans la même communauté des croyants qu’on appelle la Ouma. Selon Bernard Lewis : Les musulmans ne se voient pas comme une nation divisée en groupes religieux, mais comme une religion divisée en nations (8). L’Islam dévoilé.Bien que certains Occidentaux aient toujours été fascinés par l’Islam, la majorité d’entre eux a longtemps ignoré son message réel. Il aura fallu que se déchaîne le terrorisme islamique, avec son acmé le 11 septembre 2001 pour que le public occidental s’intéresse à la lecture du Coran et que fleurissent les éditions de livres sur l’Islam. La plupart de ces livres, écrits tout d’abord par des intellectuels musulmans de culture occidentale, ont tenté de faire des distinctions subtiles, notamment entre Islam et islamisme, entre un Islam traditionnel et l’intégrisme considéré comme une maladie de l’Islam (9). Ces ouvrages destinés aux non musulmans donnent une version habilement édulcorée de l’Islam, très différente du message destiné à ses fidèles. Christian Delacampagne a bien saisi ce risque de duperie : "[…] l’islamisme ne fait pas appel à des croyances d’une nature différente de celles qui constituent l’Islam. Il correspond simplement à une façon plus intense de vivre ces croyances. Il n’est pas un Islam marginal, atypique, aberrant. Il veut être l’Islam entendu à la lettre, dans la totalité de ses dimensions… Tant il est vrai qu’entre Islam et islamisme il n’y a jamais eu cette frontière étanche qu’ont inventée, pour dormir tranquillement, les belles âmes occidentales."

«Les vérités que l’on tait deviennent vénéneuses.» Nietzsche

http://www.libertyvox.com/article.php?id=245

Ancient Jewish city found under Palestinian suburb

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Workers digging a new Jerusalem tram line have stumbled upon the remains of an ancient Jewish city from the first century AD under what is now a Palestinian suburb of the Holy City.

Archaeologists are frantically working to unearth the nameless settlement that lies beneath the bustling streets of the Shuafat neighbourhood before they have to bury it again in order to lay tracks for a long-planned light rail line.
The newly discovered settlement dates back to the period of the second Jewish temple.
Although some archaeologists have argued that this is the site of the biblical city of Nob, a refuge for ancient priests where Saul was anointed King of Israel' .

"No one knew of a city of this importance just a few kilometres (miles) north of Jerusalem, and its name remains unknown," said Rachel Bar Nathan, one of the three archaeologists from Israel's National Antiquities Authority working on the site.
The city is believed to have been built after Roman legions sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the second temple of Herod in the year 70 AD, Bar Nathan said.
It was abandoned in the year 130, at the time of the last Jewish revolt against Rome, during the reign of Hardian.
Bulldozers have ploughed through the heart of modern-day Shuafat to make way for a tram line that will serve Jewish districts north of Jerusalem on land occupied and annexed after the Six Day War of 1967.
Armed with spades, shovels, picks and brushes, more than 50 Palestinian workmen are painstakingly digging for clues in the ancient settlement, sheltered from the sun by an overhead tarpaulin.
They have discovered traces of a fire that swept through the city almost 2,000 years ago.
Pots filled with coins have also been found buried in walls, suggesting that the residents hoped one day to return to their pillaged settlement.
A rare gold coin emblazoned with the face of the Roman emperor Trajan, who ruled from 98 to 117 AD, was among them.
The city was built facing west towards the ancient Roman road which connected Jerusalem to Flavia Neapolis, modern-day Nablus, the city founded in 72 AD by Titus, the Roman general who crushed the Jewish rebellion and was later made emperor.
Its layout and the large number of water cisterns found have led archaeologists to conclude that this city was probably a supply stop for travellers using the north-south Roman road.
Archaeologists have also uncovered private homes, public buildings, and stone cooking utensils used by Jews of the era because they believed them to be immune to impurities.
Coarse stone steps were found leading down to the remains of thermal baths, decorated with colourful mosaics, in which the faithful cleansed themselves.
The residents had also learned from their tormentors. The baths were heated by the same Roman technology found in the recently discovered bathhouse used by the 10th Roman Legion that had sacked Jerusalem and destroyed its temple.
The remains of that bathhouse were found at the city's western edge in 2005 by workers on the same tramline project.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070331/lf_afp/israelarchaeology

Jerusalem Tram Plan Trammelled?

Graffiti daubed on construction sites for the tramway in downtown Jerusalem. Snaps by JMcG

Getting around inside Jerusalem unobstructed is almost impossible, except on foot. Drivers face sudden improvised barriers, detours, closed lanes, potholes,and shallow ditches. An ambitious one-way road system keeps getting rejigged and rerouted before drivers can work it out. Local cynics insist that it's designed to enrage and frustrate car owners so they'll be willing to park and ride the city's new Light Railway once it is up and running in 2009. For now, parked cars, straddling the curbs, block most sidewalks. The city buses run sporadically, are too wide for narrow inner streets, and must share the roadway with enormous tourist coaches. Reliable public transportation--if it can be kept safe from attackers-- would be a godsend for Jerusalemites. Envisioned by Theodor Herzl back in 1900, a city rail transport plan was finally signed into existence a century later by then-mayor Ehud Olmert. He's now the Prime Minister, and the least popular man in the country.Citypass consortium is contracted to build and run the long-awaited light rail project in Jerusalem.If it can ease the traffic snarls and improve the humour of impatient drivers, that will be viewed as a minor miracle. Tempers have been fraying for months as construction workers get stuck in. With streets torn up and constantly re-piped and repaved, no one seems to know how to avoid bottlenecks.But there is yet another stumbling block. Two French companies, Veolia Transport and Connex, hold contracts for the tramway's construction and are being sued in Paris. It's political, with suggestions that the city fathers plan an apartheid railway, with separate carriages likely for Arab-Israelis, and severe restrictions against any Palestinian riders. Prosecutors allege that "Israel was exploiting international and regional crises to create a new permanent reality in Jerusalem and its vicinity, expanding the settlements, building the separation fence and constructing the light rail." The pro-Palestinian plaintiff insists that a conspiracy is underway to "turn the settlements that are located close to Jerusalem into Jewish neighborhoods of the city, facilitating transport to and from these settlements and encouraging more people to live there" because of the quick link to downtown.Creating Israeli strongholds in Arab parts of Jerusalem will further isolate the east Jerusalem neighborhoods from the West bank, the lawyers charge. The project will expropriate land from Arabs for parking lots and some rail routings. Under union pressure, a Dublin firm called Veolia Transport Ireland has balked at the project. It abruptly cancelled plans to train Israeli personnel.Dublin's union drivers refuse to allow their transport system to be used by drivers destined for a new tram system linking the illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem. “It’s not going to happen”, trade union official John Flannery said.In November the Dutch ASN Bank decided to divest from Veolia until the company respects the relevant UN resolutions. Meanwhile, the streets of Jerusalem are in disarray as railway workers pickaxe the pavement again and again.

Via Israelity bites

Hey Mel! Jesus was buried down the road!?

Is this Christian belief of Christ's empty tomb and his ascent to Heaven precluded by scientific evidence?

Click here for a video clip...and be prepared to endure a dumb little ad)

(this undated photo of Talpiyot tomb comes from Vision TV, Canada, and was tagged with the working title for the new docu-drama "The Lost Tomb of Jesus)

AFP photo of press NY Press conference to kick off Discovery Channel's Sunday broadcast based on "The Jesus Family Tomb"

Out of all the news updates following Cameron's high profile press conference in New York's Public Library about the discovery of a Jesus Family Tomb,

Time Magazine's seems to be the least hysterical, weighing up evidence as well as motive.No librarian dared to shush James Cameron and his cohorts at the New York City Public Library on Monday when they unveiled two of their ancient ossuaries to a rapt crowd of mostly show-biz journalists, along with a few more staid religious reporters.

The setting lent a rather academic feel to the presentation, which in a more standard press conference room would have been unmistakable as Hollywood heavy-hitting aimed for a ratings war.

Cross CSI NY with Tomb Raider, Da Vinci Code, and a bit of 'Holy' Ghost, and you have a guaranteed audience of Bible belt viewers and cynics alike.

It is interesting to note that archaeologists in Jerusalem are rolling their eyes at the crypt craze just unleashed in the US, and even the British tabloid press has been rather lukewarm.

After all, the same evidence was examined on the BBC eleven years ago.

The hypothesis was dismissed as conjecture by Amos Kloner, a top Israeli scholar who pointed out that a poor family from Nazareth would be very unlikely to be buried in this style. These compelling New Testament names were so popular at the time of burial that the Israeli Antiquities Authority suggests that this cluster is only "coincidence", rather like finding Tom, Dick, and Harry together in an American family tomb of the 1940s.

Cameron countered this assertion at his press conference by quipping:

"If you found a John, a Paul and a George, you're not going to leap to any conclusions... unless you found a Ringo."

The sticking point is whether this purported Mary Magdalene bone box is equivalent to finding a Ringo. The show will be broadcast on Sunday if you want to look at the "evidence" for yourself.

The authorities in Jerusalem are mulling over opening the tomb up to visitors, according to the Jerusalem Post. Newsweek posts a preview clip from the show.

Click here

Via Israely bites

The Real Tomb of Jesus?

Ossuary with the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"

(Link Updated 2/25/07: Is the ossuary a fake? Link [wiki] )
James Cameron (yes, that guy who directed Titanic)

and Simcha Jacobovici [official website wiki],

an award winning documentary director, sure are stirring up a controversy:

they’re making a documentary about the (supposedly) real tomb of Jesus.

From Time Magazine:
Let’s go back 27 years, when Israeli construction workers were gouging out the foundations for a new building in the industrial park in the Talpiyot, a Jerusalem suburb. of Jerusalem.

The earth gave way, revealing a 2,000 year old cave with 10 stone caskets.

Archologists were summoned, and the stone caskets carted away for examination.

It took 20 years for experts to decipher the names on the ten tombs.

They were:

Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua.

Not that this whole controversy is new:

there are many supposed tombs of Jesus,

besides the Church of the Holy Sepulchre [wiki] on the site where Jesus was crucified and buried according to most scholars,

the Garden Tomb outside of Jerusalem, Roza Bal shrine in Kashmir,

and Shingo, Aomori [wiki] in Japan where Jesus supposedly fled after the crucifixion.

The lethal al-Aqsa plot hoax

A century-long campaign of unfounded claims of a Jewish 'plot' against the mosque continues unabated

As the Israel Antiquities Authority begins construction work at the Mugrabi Gate in Jerusalem in order to make the area structurally sound and safe for visitors, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has called on Muslims "to defend the al-Aqsa Mosque." Hamas has also charged Israel with "demolishing parts of the Aqsa mosque" on its website.

Although the works are not taking place on the Temple Mount , the Hamas website accused "the Israeli occupation government of conspiring to finally destroy the Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest Muslim shrine world-wide, and to install the alleged Third Temple on its ruins."

"The Aqsa Mosque is in real danger and needs Muslim support to defend and spare it the rancorous Israeli conspiracies", Palestinian Chief Justice Tayseer al-Tamimi declared, calling on Muslim masses to assemble to "protect" the site.

And the Head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah, claims to have "documents and photos" proving that "the demolition of the pathway and the two rooms under the Buraq Mosque will expose both the Aqsa Mosque and Buraq Mosque inside Al-Haram Al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) to extreme danger as Israeli settlers will easily access both of them," the Hamas website added on Tuesday.

Calls have been issued for Palestinians to "unite their guns in defense of al-Aqsa," while the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have threatened terrorist attacks if the work continue.

Certainly, small, far-Right fringe groups exist within Israel that have set their sights on the mosque, and on rebuilding the Temple using physical force - but the State of Israel has devoted considerable resources of its security arms to keeping such extreme elements in check.

Why do Palestinian leaders continue to insist that the al-Aqsa mosque is "in danger?" The answer may lie in the shiny gold covering of the Dome of the Rock itself.

A history of false charges
Since the 1920s, Palestinian leaders have used the site as a rallying cry to wage war against the Jewish presence in Israel, and to try and gain support from Muslims abroad. The Palestinian prime minister today is continuing a 90-year tradition of incitement, which began with the Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini.

Husseini, who is widely seen as the father of Palestinian nationalism, used the al-Nabi festival, which commemorates the defeat of the Crusaders, and conquest of Jerusalem by the Islamic general Sala'ah al-Din, to instigate anti-Jewish riots in April 1920, even before he became a mufti. His message was simple: Jews are the new Crusaders, and Islam must re-invade Jerusalem.

After being elected mufti (through dubious strong-arm tactics, according to some sources,) and becoming head of the Supreme Muslim Council, Haj Amin embarked on an ambitious project of restoring the al-Haram (Dome of the Rock) and the al-Sharif (al-Aqsa Mosque).

By doing so, Haj Amin hoped to draw the attention of millions of Muslims to the Palestinian cause, and to gain material and financial support so that he could fight the growing Zionist Jewish community in Israel.

Members of the Islamic Council traveled around Muslim countries in the 1920s to gain support, with one delegation to Mecca stating: "The Islamic Palestine Nation, which has been guarding al-Aqsa and (the) Holy Rock ever since 1300 years, declares to the Muslim world that the Holy Places are in great danger on account of the horrible Zionist aggressions."

Like clockwork
These missions resulted in a successful fund-raising drive, which led to the gold covering of the Dome of the Rock.

One British official in Mandatory Palestine noted at the time a "remarkable psychological change..." and a "stirring of a new feeling in the Muslims of this country" following the restoration.

Haj Amin also had photos with the Star of David superimposed on the Dome of the Rock distributed widely, in order to convince Muslims of a "Jewish plot" against the site.

In April 1929, Haj Amin helped stoke riots by issuing a Friday afternoon sermon at the al-Aqsa Mosque, reemphasizing the charge of a Jewish bid to take over the Islamic holy sites.

The incitement continued right through into the 1990s, when in 1997, Yasser Arafat declared: "I am ringing the bell of danger to warn against the Jewish plan to build the Temple of Solomon in the place where today stands Al Aqsa Mosque, after removing the mosque."

Similar incitement flooded the airwaves of the Palestinian Authority following Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000, launching what has now become known as the al-Aqsa Intifada.

Like clockwork, warnings of an Israeli plot to destroy the mosque are issued by the Hamas government every few days, ensuring that the flames of unfounded paranoia and incitement against Israel remain lit.

Yaakov Lappin
Published:
02.06.07, 20:21 / Israel Opinion

Also:

In September of 2000, Arik Sharon visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. A place "Holy to Christians, Moslems, and Jews". The visit seemed to spark wild rumors of an attack on Al Aksa. Al Aksa is the Mosque built (between 709-715 C.E.) over the ruins of the temple built by Solomon almost 3,000 years ago and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E., and later of the second temple, razed by the Romans in 70 C.E..
The irrational hysteria built, rioting spread, and ballooned into the grotesque violence called "the Al Aksa Intifada."
Months later that we discovered that the whole operation had been carefully planned in advance.
As I write this commentary, in February of 2007, wild rumors of an attack on Al Aksa are once again being spread. The hysteria is, once again, building rapidly.

Jerusalem Arabs Riot, Kassams Fired, After Old City Excavations

Restrictions were placed on Moslem worshipers allowed to the Temple Mount, and the police were out in force Tuesday morning at the excavation works site, in anticipation of a fierce Arab reaction to the work. Though less violent than expected, rock-throwers rioted in eastern and northern Jerusalem; 11 Arabs were arrested.

In addition, terrorist groups fired four Kassam rockets, in two waves, claiming to retaliate for the excavation work. In the first Kassam wave, around 1 PM, one rocket landed on the fence of a sensitive infrastructures installations outside Ashkelon, and one crashed into the western Negev. Three hours later, two more rockets smashed down near Sderot, including one that landed in a nearby community. No one was hurt.

The Antiquities Authority is carrying out a "salvage excavation," a preparatory operation before the construction of a new pedestrian pathway to the Temple Mount. The existing one, leading to the Mughrabim Gate, was rebuilt over the past two years after earthquake and weather damage, and cuts off much of the women's prayer area at the Western Wall.

Jerusalem arachaeologist Yuval Baruch said that the excavations are not at all near the Temple Mount, and that the Arabs have no reason to protest. Jerusalem District Police Chief Ilan Franko agreed, adding that the works were coordinated in advance with the Moslem Waqf that oversees the Temple Mount.

Arab leaders were unfazed, however, and continued to stoke the fires of conflict. Hamas Authority leader Ismail Haniyeh called on Moslems all over Israel, including in the PA-controlled areas, to "prevent" the continuation of the works, and Fatah figures made similar calls. Arab MKs Tzartzour and Zechalke showed up in the Old City and demanded to see the excavation plans, while MK Taleb A-Sana warned of the outbreak of "a third intifada." Other Arab leaders warned Israel of the dangers of "playing with fire."

Left-wing Knesset Members were quick to condemn the Israeli initiative. Colette Avital (Labor) said the work is unnecessary, and Meretz Party chairman Yossi Beilin said the project could cause a disaster.

Some feel that the Arab rage was actually caused by other archaeological finds in the area, which disprove the Arab theory developed over the past ten years claiming that Jerusalem and the Temple Mount were never historically Jewish.

Doron Spielman, Director of Development for the City of David foundation, says that anti-Zionists and Arabs truly have something to complain about. Speaking today on IsraelNationalRadio about a recent "phenomenal" discovery that left show hosts Yishai and Malkah Fleisher "speechless," Spielman informed listeners of the find of a 150-foot-wide staircase and an accompanying roadway leading directly up to the Temple from the Siloam Pool. He explained that the many thousands of Jews who arrived in Jerusalem three times a year would have used that stairway on their way from ritually immersing in the Pool to reach the Temple.

Last night ride

Sunday morning

Good morning Jerusalem

Little Green Football was an inspiration for this blog so...



Today's ride: about 3 miles across jerusalem from home to work, the bus drivers haven't managed to kill me yet...

From toy to reality

and you didn't believe in miracle!!

Pride and Prejudice

I bumped into a bunch of English guys last night in Mike's Place, three seconds after I'd bought a soldier on leave from Lebanon another beer.

For once they weren't a group of football fans, UN soldiers or journalists travelling together, so everyone had opinions of their own. One preached 'when in Rome...' (like I needed to learn it?) and another expressed similar sentiments in a more modern way, aka 'when in New York...'

We were discussing the Gay Pride march, which was to have been held in Jerusalem and now is not.

The Third Man, being non-Jewish and new to the area, felt strongly that the Gay Pride parade should've been allowed in Jerusalem. 'Why not Tel Aviv?' I asked - Tel Aviv is far more European than Jerusalem will ever be. 'That's no challenge, obviously,' the American Jewish visitor sitting behind me offered.

Probably that's the entire reasoning behind this particular issue.

The Third Man certainly thought so, but his response to that idea and mine were so far apart that we found each other offensive, even though we'd both played by the rules of social engagement.I think having a Gay Pride march in Jerusalem at present would open the town up to overt violence all over again, as opposed to the bubbling undercurrent of potential violence we all know and love. The effort to prevent the parade united Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious leaders here.

Now that is an achievement; in Israel we hear next to nothing about these moments of unity between religions, but briefly there was peace... peace in a stranglehold maybe, but still peace...He thinks having a Gay Pride march in Jerusalem will normalize the city, make it part of the world. Hm. Yeah actually so do the rabbis, priests and imams. That's why none of them want it. How's a man to make a living?... nah, it really would be offensive to them, as it would to many sectors of the population living here. Including me, and please don't bother telling me I'm anti-gay, because I'm demonstrably not. I just think if I'm treading on someone else's toes it'd be polite to move away, is all.Inevitably, Daniel said to me (much, much later) he was all for hosting the Gay Pride march in Jerusalem. 'If you need to say something you should say it loud'. 'But in Jerusalem?'

- I'm shocked. Heck, I might be a goy but I don't even eat pork in Jerusalem, it would feel so wrong. Jerusalem is a beautiful princess in bondage gear, waiting hopefully for her Prince Charming to come back. And there you have it, in a nutshell.The debate isn't about whether you are for or against gay activism; the debate is about whether you see Jerusalem as a symbol, or as a city much like any other. Seeing her as a symbol doesn't in any way preclude knowing Jerusalem as a city, but it's the one thing the various religious factions here share and understand about one another, without effort. Treating her as a secular city means ignoring that other reality; it effectively means sidelining the religious population, of all persuasions.

While that may be a road to a secular peace, it doesn't take into account the history of the city, or its social make up, or its physical situation on the borderline between East and West. It assumes that everyone else is - or should be - prepared to leave God out of the equation. In Jerusalem, that's quite an assumption to make.

I'd join that march - in Tel Aviv.

from

http://www.goytalk.blogspot.com/