Shalom to all!
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March 17, 2002
Even if Israel has new elections in November, seven more months of Israel taking orders from the US with no strong leadership will likely cause her demise. It is imperative that Israel immediately puts out the Palestinian fire and completely stop it's cooperation with the United States altogether.
Zinni is a State Department emissary. He is doing what Colin Powell tells him to do. Colin Powell is the 'Great Satan' that the Arabs are referring to! Ariel Sharon is the Prime Minister of Israel. Israel is not a puppet state nor is it a satellite state of the United States. Israel is an independent Jewish state and it's Prime Minister must not be a U.S. State Department puppet. Sharon is doing what Colin Powell is telling him to do. Colin Powell (and the U.S.) couldn't care less about Israel (even though they are Israel's "best friend.") Ariel Sharon cares more about being on good terms with Colin Powell than he cares about Israel. For what? For the $3 billion aid package? If that's all it is (and that is the only thing it could be,) he's selling out Israel way too cheap.
D. Willens
P.S. Nobody seems to remember that in 1948 the U.N. created a state for the Palestinians and a state for the Jews. The Hashemite Kingdom named theirs 'Jordan.' The population from 1948 remained at 95% Palestinian and the rest Hashemite Kingdom! Israel, the U.S. and the U.N. simply forgot about this minor detail because 'Palestine' was being called 'Jordan'! Now, even Ariel Sharon says that creating a (2nd)" Palestinian state is a fait accompli." Of course, this idea is the single most sure way to literally force the end of Israel. Palestinians do not need two Palestinian states, or do they?
March 6, 2002
I Don't Get It, Do You? Does Anyone?
I have been monitoring the situation in Israel like white on rice for the past many years and reading every Israel-related article in every journal that I could get my hands on, like a compulsive junky. Also, as a 'news junky,' I followed just as closely the Gulf War and the history of Moslem attacks on America. Nevertheless, after all this massive intake of information, I still just don't get it! There must me some kind of 'strategy' or 'outlook' that someone must see and that I simply cannot perceive.
61% of Arabs polled say that Arabs were not involved in the 9-11 attack. All Islamic countries, including Turkey, have unfavorable views on Bush and the US War on Terrorism. The EU, similarly has a dim view of American efforts to fight terrorists, while sending European tax revenues to supporting Palestinian terrorist groups. 4% of Pakistanis think that the US attack on Afghanistan was morally justifiable. 41% of Israelis are in favor of the Saudi-Tom Friedman initiative!
How is it possible that people have such disparity in thinking about things? Could it be that it is because of the news sources that they rely on? The established 'press' around the world does not convey the 'News' as it is or in an objective way. News information is conveyed through prisms of distortion that slant the situation to the agendas of the power behind the press. Is listening to CNN, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, WASHINGTON POST, NEW YORK TIMES, all of the Arab and European press, especially AL-JAZEERA, harmful to your mental health, able to destroy your sense of truth vs. fiction and let you end up with a world view that would have you perpetuate your own demise and shoot yourself in the foot?
Israel was forced to take 'Trans-Jordan' because she was constantly being attacked from there. Then, Israel allows these 'Territories' to fill up with armed enemy Palestinians who declare (for the first time in history) that this is their 'Holy' land and Jerusalem is their third most 'Holy' site. Israel then allows them to attack her 30 to 40 times a day and for the first time in Israel's history permits a daily 'tolerable level of Jewish deaths.'
I still do not understand why Shimon Peres and many of Israel's leaders and population say: "there is no military solution" and insist that we must end up negotiating peace with these people. We need to get them out of our country and to prevent them from killing us all day every day like a plague of mosquitoes. Let them hate us from outside the country. The only solution is the military solution.
I also do not comprehend the sympathy we feel for them. We don't need peace with them (nor would we ever receive it) any more than we need a new hole in our schizophrenic heads.
Jordan was created when Israel was created as a Palestinian state. Our Palestinian enemies do no need two states, especially one within shooting distance.
Israel has been surrounded by enemy Arab populations who were at war with her since her creation. It was a schlep, but at least they were outside the country and Israel could contain herself, more or less, within her borders. Even when it got to the point that the attacks from Gaza, Trans-Jordan and the Golan became intolerable, Israel resolved it so that she could continue to contain herself within her own borders and be able to defend herself against the (external) enemy. The militant Palestinians then flooded into Jordan proper and stability in Jordan was threatened. King Hussein then slaughtered 90,000 of them in one afternoon and kicked them out of the country. They then flocked up to Lebanon, which had up till that moment been "the gem of the Middle East" and proceeded with their violent life style to destroy that country. Israel then herded them, all 900,000 of them, onto boats and shipped them out to sea! They went over to Algeria and stayed in terrorist training camps until: Israel allows them to flock back to old Trans Jordan, including Yasser Arafat himself, and start talking about holy land and statehood (and recently that he will make Israel "another Lebanon.")
Can anyone fathom this? Is there anyone who would please tell me what this is all about? I simply cannot figure it out. Once they get back to Israel, they proceed to attack us, bring down two governments, demand statehood with their capital in Jerusalem. Israel then gives them exclusive control over her holiest site, the Temple Mount. Israel then allowed them to attack and murder us on a daily basis and shows 'restraint' in her responses: they kill our people, we take down their deserted buildings. Israel says that she yearns to negotiate peace with these very people and allow them to live in Israel.
One thing is clear: that public opinion is based on information from the news sources used. Where do Americans get their news about Israel? Where does Europe get it's news about America? Where do Arabs get their news about the War on Terror? Israel doesn't have time for news, she's too busy burying her dead.
I just don't get it! Why is it that we are living in a "Through The Looking Glass" world where everything is exactly the opposite from the way it should be? How can Arabs think that Arabs did not perpetrate the attack on America on 9-11? How can Europe not support the US War on Terror and continue to support the terrorists themselves? Surely there is an excellent explanation for Israel's position! It must be a strategy. Do you know? Does anyone know?
D. Willens
March 3, 2002
Dear Sirs,
I strongly feel the Israeli army should go into camps like Tulkarm and Jenin as well as several suburbs that manufactute all lethal weppons and destroy such factories for the sake of future peace. They must do it soon and with effectiveness. I would like to see a peaceful Israel and without any terrorists in the midst of the Palestinians.
Shalom & Good luck.
R. (UK)
February 18, 2002
Dear Friend:
Yesterday our daughter, husband and children escorted terror victim Nehemia Amar, 15, from Karnei Shomron to his final resting place. As I write this, hundreds , including our children and grandchildren-- friends of the teens who were murdered-- are escorting the second terror victim Keren Shatsky , also 15, to her final resting place. Both were killed in the Saturday night suicide bombing attack in the community_s shopping center. A bomb was detonated in a pizza shop killing Keren and Nechemia. 29 persons were wounded, mostly youths and children, some still listed in very critical and serious condition. The suicide bomber was from the Arab town of Kalkilya. He was the 123rd suicide bomber to inflict death and devastation on innocent civilians. May G-d avenge their blood. (Yet the world demands that Israel negotiate with those who kill children for political purposes.)
Suddenly everything blew up. I was thrown across the room and landed on my back, stunned. A lady picked me up. Everyone was lying on the floor covered with blood. There were signs of blood and destruction everywhere. What looked like body parts were lying around. A little girl cried out to me, "Help me, I lost my hand". I didn't know what to do. I lifted her from the floor and put her on a chair, and ran to get help. These are the words of a teenager who survived the bombing.
Twenty-nine other civilians, many of them teenagers, were wounded, and 22 of them remain hospitalized. Two teenage girls remain in critical condition at Schneider Children's Medical Center for Israel in Petah Tikva with severe head wounds from the bomb's nails and shrapnel. According to doctors, they are fighting for their lives. Four other victims remain in serious condition.
Please recite Tehillim (Psalms) for the recovery of all who were wounded. We have the names of two who are in critical condition. I recite the following Psalms: # 6, 30, 41, 88 and 103
Rachel Bat Janette( do not know Hebrew name). She is undergoing surgery now to remove the nails that were imbedded in her brain.
Hillel Noach Ben Shulamit Rivka. He is in bad shape.
May the Rofeh Kol Bassar (Healer of All Flesh) heed your prayers for their recovery.
G-d of All Truth, it is the Hebrew month of Adar when Jews should be rejoicing. "Ad Matai"?! - "Until When"?!
We plead with You to send us only good news from now on.
February 13, 2002
Gamla Staff,
I am a 67 year old American of Norwegian ancestry, engineer by profession
I feel very strongly that the reason America is so blessed is that we support Israel. The following is a commentary I submitted to the local newspspaper, The Roanoke Times, in Roanoke, VA.
Why Do They Hate Us? It's All About Israel
In a speech to Congress on September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush asked this question. Most Arabs and Muslims knew the answer, even before they considered who was responsible for the attacks on America. Most of our leaders, the media, and even some Middle East authorities, including Israelis, try to obscure the root cause. They say we are resented by the Muslim world because we have U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. They say it's because of our economic sanctions against Iraq, Libya, and Iran, and our support for repressive Middle East regimes with feudal monarchies. Also, it's because of our decadent lifestyle. These are all secondary issues. The main reason is our years of unstinting support for Israel.
Four thousand years ago, in Genesis, God told Abraham, "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you." Mount Moriah - now the Temple Mount in Jerusalem - is where Jewish and Christian tradition hold that Abraham almost sacrificed his son Isaac. Isaac's son Jacob was renamed Israel by God, and given the promise of the land of Canaan (now Israel) and a covenant that he and his descendants would be "God's people" forever. Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C. and since then Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Seven hundred and twenty six years later (586 B.C.), the first Jewish Temple (on today's Temple Mount) was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzer, king of Babylon. In 70 A.D., it was the Roman Empire's turn to conquer Israel and destroy the second Jewish Temple, slaughtering or driving out much of the Jewish population. The Romans called the land Palestine for the Philistines, as a humiliation to the Jews who had defeated the Philistines centuries earlier. Many Jews left because conditions of life were made unbearable, yet thousands stayed and rebelled for centuries to rebuild a Jewish nation in this Holy Land.
Over the next 1,878 years - the Diaspora - various peoples, religions, and empires, including Christian crusaders, the Ottomans - and briefly the British - marched through Jerusalem. None were interested in building a nation there. Included in these "invaders" were the Arabs. In 636 A.D., Arab marauders came to the land and uprooted many Jews, but they did not form an Arab nation, certainly not a "Palestinian" nation. The name Palestine is mentioned 4 times in the Bible - not once in the Koran. The name Jerusalem is mentioned 767 times in the Bible - not once in the Koran. No nation, other than ancient Israel and the reborn nation of Israel in 1948, has ever reigned as a sovereign national entity in the land of Canaan.
Modern Israel is a miracle. This tiny nation, now with 6,000,000 people and 7,500 square miles, is the third greatest military power in the world. In November 1947, the U.N. General Assembly voted to partition the British mandate of Palestine into two territories that were envisioned as future states - one predominantly Jewish, the other Arab. Six months later, on May 14, 1948, hours before the British withdrew, the state of Israel was proclaimed and immediately recognized by the United States and Soviet Union. At that moment 54 years ago, the Palestinians had a state, or a territory designated for a creation of their state. If reason had governed, two small nations might have thrived as neighbors at peace. But it was not to be. On May 15, one day after Israel's declaration of statehood, the Arab regimes of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria set their armies in motion with the stridently declared objective of driving the Jews into the sea. History shows they failed. The Arabs had 250,000,000 people, Israel 700,000. The Arabs had 1,500,000 square miles of territory, Israel 4,000.
They failed again in 1956 at Suez and, even more decisively, in the six-day war of 1967, that ended in humiliation, especially for Egypt, whose soldiers threw down their weapons and fled on foot back across the Sinai, with some 10,000 perishing in the retreat. The final failure was in the 1973 Yom Kippur war, which began with an Egyptian and Syrian attack on October 6, the Hebrew Day of Atonement and the 10th day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. After four wars and tens of thousands of Arab and Israeli deaths, the Arab states had enough. In a series of historic blunders, they ensured the Palestinians continued statelessness. Having spent lives and treasures to no point, Egypt and Jordan agreed to peace. The Israelis did not take any land from the
Palestinians, but bought it or won it in battle from the Arab nations who attacked them, so the term "occupied territories" is a misnomer.
Through those 25 years of confrontation and 29 troubled years since, no Arab country, except for Jordan, has allowed Palestinians to immigrate in significant numbers, extended rights of citizenship, or committed resources to relieving the misery in the refugee camps. About 2 million Palestinian refugees have lived in camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt since 1948, and about 1 million live in the West Bank and Gaza. If the oil rich Arab regimes and the Palestinian Authority have such compassion for the refugees, why do they leave them in camps? Israel has absorbed 2 million Jews from the Soviet Union and the Arab nations, at great expense, yet there are no Jewish refugee camps. The Palestinians are just an excuse for the Arabs, a means to have a surrogate guerilla army within Israel. Generations of young, born in the camps, have no profession but violence, no ambition but martyrdom, no creed but rage. So today, Palestinian youths strap explosives to their bodies and blow themselves to eternity, somehow imagining it will help secure for their people the state they could have had in 1948, except for the tragic miscalculations of their Arab brethren. The virulent hatred is flamed by militant Muslims, who have declared a holy war of terror against Israel - and the United States for supporting Israel. Without us, they would again try to drive the Jews into the sea, and if Israel could be destroyed the United States would no longer be the enemy. It's all about Israel.
M. Thompson
February 10, 2002
Gamla:
It occurred to me that the present tactics of Israel to keep Arafat surrounded and entering towns and villages that known terrorist exist is an excellent ploy, but why not take it a step further, and put Arafat and the entire PLO organization in "Protective Custody".
Since the Gaza Strip originally belonged to Egypt and the West Bank belonged to Jordan, iniate negtotiations for return of those lands to Egypt and Jordan. Israel already has peace agreements with those two countries and since they each have capitols, they don't need another capitol, Jerusalem. Some of the hundreds of millions of dollars given to Egypt, Jordan, the PLO and Israel each year by the USA and Europe could be used more productively to build homes, and infrastucture for the Palesinians, besides putting them to work.
By the way, the USA is involved with the world oil empire and has done very little to come up with alternative "power packages" to replace the reciprocal gasoline engine. It only took the USA 19 months to conceive, develop and prototype the atomic bomb. I would bet if Israel were to select a team of scientist, and engineers it could come up with a replacement package that would use little or no oil or gas. With world wide patents the economy of Israel would take off and the Arab economy would take a nose dive.
Respectfully,
B. Flax
January 3, 2002
Dear Sir:
I think it's only fair to say that the Israeli and Palestinian positions are irreconcilable. The presuppositions in each case are so radically divorced from each other it is a mystery to me why anyone keeps on talking about reaching an agreement. There is no possibility of a peaceful resolution, nor has there ever been, because the results the parties want are mutually exclusive. The only question to be answered is: when is the best time, politically and logistically, to act decisively to end the impasse by force?
I believe the time for Israel to act in her own best interests has passed. The political will to act no longer exists. Probably 1973/74 was an optimum moment when annexation of the West Bank and Gaza could have been accomplished with a minimum of political backlash. Such an act now would simply alienate Israel's only ally. All that is left for her now is the pretence of meaningful action while her enemies prepare for the final onslaught.
Hopefully when Israelis realize that they are going to be utterly destroyed they will turn to the only One who can save them. What is needed now is not decisive military action, it is national repentance and spiritual revival. For it is written: "My people will not know peace until they say 'Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the LORD.' "
D. Thomas
Surrey, BC Canada
January 4, 2002
Hey, that book "What Shimon Says" is excellent! It would be incredibly funny if it wasn't so sad. It is sad that this man is trying to murder the State of Israel. I was reading the latest article from the Women in Green calling on all of Israel to rise up and stand against the evil desires of this man, Peres. Please continue to sound the "shofar"! Israel's REAL danger is Peres. Arafat is just a plain old terrorist, and we can see that openly, but Peres? Look out Israel!!!
A lover of Israel from the USA,
Renee'
January 6, 2002
Hi Gamla,
Listen my friends, I tried to send you my opinions about Arafat but you all want peace so much and I don't blame you. Now look what's happening in your country. Well, I'm sticking with Joshua's declaration when he says " as for me and my house we will serve the Lord". I know who's country you are living in-I know that God gave it to the people Israel and He will never break His covenant promises. My condolences to the people who have lost loved ones through murderous suicide bombings and idiotic attacks of buses and such. If that "little man" thinks that he has what it takes to declare war against Israel-then I laugh in his face because he doesn't know the God that he's messing with. God will only put up with so much. Pretty soon Arafat will be the next pharoah that God will deal with. I'm gonna tell you to just keep trusting in Yhwh even though it looks like He's ignoring you. He will never break His promises. I love you Israel and will always love you.
K. Patrick