Islam - This Day in History - How East Jerusalem Went From the Jewish Quarter to the Palestinian Quarter

..

Precious record of Jerusalem ethnic cleansing of 1948 resurfaces

Point of No Return

Posted on 22 August 2021

Had it not been for Life photojournalist John Phillips, the destruction of the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem by the Arab Legion in 1948, now ignored by western pundits and politicians,  would not have been documented. Phillips evaded the Arab censor to smuggle out poignant pictures. They were later published as the book,  A Will to Survive. Richard Pollock takes up the story in JNS News: 

Jerusalem Mayor Mordechai Weingarten escorted by Arab fighters to sign surrender papers

for the Jewish Quarter

 

Phillips faced personal danger to do the shoot. He entered the Middle East undercover and wore the uniform of the Arab Legion, a British-created Arab army led by British officers, many of whom stayed on with their units to fight the Jews. “Mistaking me for a British officer, the Arab populace left me alone,” he wrote.

He was appalled about the Arab censorship. “Aware that the sack of the Jewish Quarter would shock the western world, Arab authorities across the Middle East tried to prevent the news from leaking out. Jerusalem could not be mentioned under any circumstances,” he wrote.

“I knew my pictures of the agony of the Jewish Quarter would end up in a censor’s wastepaper basket. I did not want this to happen and decided to smuggle them out of the Middle East.”

Phillips’ first job was to meet the pro-Nazi Arab fanatic, Fawzi al-Qawuqji, the field commander of the so-called Arab Liberation Army—a separate, brutal volunteer force specifically created to battle the Jews.

During the Second World War, Fawzi lived in Nazi Germany alongside Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and held the official rank of colonel in the Wehrmacht, the German army. The Nazis awarded Fawzi a chauffeured car and an apartment, along with other privileges.

Impulsively, Fawzi invited Phillips to lunch. He wrote that he was offended by what he saw. “There was a brutishness about the way they roared with laughter and slapped their thighs in delight at the prospect of wallowing in Jewish blood,” he wrote.

Afterwards, Philips ran into a Yugoslav mercenary who had witnessed their lunch meeting. “What rabble,” Phillips wrote, quoting the mercenary. “They have no idea what a real fighting outfit is like. I do. I was with the Waffen S.S.”

In fact, that soldier was not alone. The ranks of Arab Liberation Army included demobilized Nazi Wehrmacht Army soldiers, including the brutal SS, along with pro-Nazi mercenary forces from across Europe.

Phillips admired the Jewish defiance. “While the Old Quarter might well be indefensible, they would defend it. This was the Jerusalem that Jewish people around the world asked to return to in their prayers.”

The pre-war atmospherics shocked Phillips, a veteran World War II photographer. “Weapons were peddled on Arab street corners as they were Jaffa oranges. British deserters, German S.S., Polish and Yugoslav mercenaries hired by the Arabs performed acts of sabotage.”

Phillips traveled the city with a British deserter. He was astonished by the destruction of its synagogues. “Whenever we paused to catch our breath, all I seemed to see were damaged synagogues,” he wrote.

He also saw the destruction of the famed Pirate Josef Synagogue. “From a spot near the Wailing Wall I could see Porat Josef synagogue rising in the distance across no-man’s-land. The synagogue, with its adjoining Talmudic schools and academy, was disintegrating behind billows of smoke. The massive walls were coming down in a rising torrent of stone debris. Stunned by this spectacle of wanton destruction, I wondered how many tons of TNT the Arab Liberation Army would squander to reduce this seat of learning to dust.”

For 11 days and nights, the battle raged. On May 28, Jerusalem fell to the Arabs. “By day the Arabs blasted their way into the Jewish Quarter with their artillery,” wrote Phillips. “On May 28 the exhausted Israeli fighters surrendered.”

Eventually, Jerusalem Mayor Mordechai Weingarten walked in to sign the surrender documents.

The surrender of the Jewish Quarter now was official. But the city’s tragedy was only beginning. “Had any Jews decided to remain in the Old City he would have been homeless within hours and probably dead by nightfall. Most of the civilians were Orthodox Jews. The men wore beards and side curls, wide-brimmed black felt hats and long black coats. The women wore babushkas. They were descendants of families that had lived in the Jewish Quarter for centuries. Now they were given just one hour to pack and get ready to leave.”

He describes the stunned civilians. “Dazed by the shelling, the civilians gathered up their belongings and trudged off to Ashkenazi Square.”

After the Jews fled, Phillips walked back to witness wild Arab looting and arson. “Arab civilians … had come leaping over the rooftops like a swarm of locusts to loot. In their frenzied path fires sprang up. Black smoke billowed out of windows, while bright yellow flames licked wooden balconies. The entire quarter was now afire. The smell of burning mingled with the stench of death.”

Phillips continued to follow the fires. “Outside the Jewish Quarter burned like a pyre. On May 29 the Jewish Quarter was charred and a burned-out shell. Down Beit El a proud Moslem led the way, followed by his barefoot wife carrying three wooden containers of Sephardic scrolls from a nearby synagogue.”

Thirty years later, in 1976, Phillips published Survive. Many of his photos were unveiled at Jerusalem’s Israel Museum. Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir wrote a short introduction to the book.

With the help of then-Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, he was able to meet with 51 of the survivors he had photographed.

What Phillips said affected him was the Jews’ complete lack of self-pity. “What struck me most while talking to these people, from the Chief Rabbi of Haifa to a Jerusalem housekeeper, was that none indulged in self-pity.”

Today’s Jews still don’t seek pity, but they should demand justice. The sacredness of the Old Jewish Quarter and its brutal destruction by the Arabs need to be widely republicized. There needs to be an international historical reckoning of their 1948 ethnic cleansing. Most importantly, the Jewish community must stand up for historical truths and strongly denounce the Palestinians’ baseless claims for the eastern part of the city. 

Devout Jews know that justice will arrive in the Name of the Messiah. I believe, and I pray, that it will be in the next decade!

Myanmar: ‘400 Villages Destroyed, 150,000 People Displaced’ in Kachin State

These are mostly Christian victims as Myanmar's ethnic cleansing

is not confined to Muslims

An elderly Kachin woman looks for shelter after fleeing fighting between Myanmar’s army and Kachin rebels in December 2011. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

More than 400 villages have been damaged or destroyed and 150,000 people displaced since the collapse of a ceasefire in 2011 between Myanmar’s army and rebels in northern Kachin state, reports Catholic website AsiaNews.

In 2018 alone, 50 villages were abandoned and more than 7,000 people fled their homes, seeking refuge in local churches, with host families or relatives, or in official camps for internally displaced people (IDPs).

Many people have been killed or injured by landmines – 13 people died this year and 39 suffered serious injuries since fighting escalated in January this year – according to the charity Caritas Myanmar.

Of those displaced since the collapse of the 17-year ceasefire between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Myanmar government, 130,000 live in the 165 IDP camps dotted all over Kachin and across the north of neighbouring Shan state.

Furthermore, 311 churches, 24 Buddhist monasteries, 34 childcare centres, 122 schools, and 264 outpatient clinics have been destroyed, Caritas Myanmar says.

It seems obvious that Myanmar is determined to protect its Buddhist religion by cleansing the country of those that might compete with it. This, quite possibly, is what Europe is headed for if they don't stop the mad influx of Muslims into the continent.

I wonder how long it will be before mainstream media report this, or if they ever will report this?

Two weeks ago a Catholic church in Kamaing Kawng Ra village was hit by military fire, leaving bullet holes in the walls and an unexploded shell in the church compound. A toddler was wounded after a second shell exploded near her home, sending shrapnel fragments through the bamboo walls, Catholic news site UCAN reported.

About 300 Catholics from the village, and some 45 IDPs who fled their homes a month ago, are staying in a hall near the church compound, according to UCAN.

‘Invisible war’

The violence against the minority Christian population in Kachin “is an invisible war”, San Htoi, the joint secretary of Kachin Women’s Association Thailand, told the UK’s Guardian newspaper in May. She said that on a recent visit, representatives of the United Nations Security Council went only to Rakhine state and “left the country without knowing [about Kachin]”.

The new UN envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, started her visit to the country yesterday (12 June), where she will discuss the Rohingya refugee crisis with officials and meet with civil society groups, religious leaders and members of the diplomatic community.

The International Criminal Court has been called upon to investigate the atrocities committed against the Rohingya Muslims, after the government was accused of genocide. And human rights activist Ewelina Ochab says “decisive” action is needed to prevent further crimes against humanity.

“First, they [the government] came for the Rohingya Muslims… then they came for the Christian minorities, and little will change if there will be no decisive steps to address the situation,” she wrote. Then they will come for all other minorities in Burma, and so our humanity will suffer yet another blow.”

Kachin State, Myanmar

Amnesty International: Rohingya Militants Massacred Hindus in Myanmar

The other side of the story, for a change

By Daniel Uria  |  (UPI)

Rohingya Muslim militants massacred 99 Hindu citizens in Myanmar, including 45 whose bodies were found in a mass grave near Yebawkya village, according to an Amnesty International report. Photo by Nyein Chan Naning/EPA

A group of Rohingya Muslim militants killed nearly 100 Hindu civilians in a series of attacks in Myanmar, according to an Amnesty International report.

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army killed 99 Hindu people in one, or possibly two massacres, in August 2017, Amnesty International concluded after reviewing dozens of interviews and photographic evidence.

"Our latest investigation on the ground sheds much-needed light on the largely under-reported human rights abuses by ARSA during northern Rakhine State's unspeakably dark recent history," Amnesty International Crisis Response Director Tirana Hassan said.

Under-reported is right. MSM only reports one side of a dispute anymore. They pick one side and vilify the other. 

The ethnic cleansing committed by Myanmar's military was inhumane and unforgivable, but perhaps can be understood a little better in the context of Islamic invasion. This is how Buddhist Myanmar has always seen the Rohingyas, whether Muslim or Hindu, they threatened the Buddhist way of life. Islam is a threat to existing social constructs everywhere they land. Europeans are only just beginning to see this. Burmese have seen it for decades.

On Aug. 26, ARSA members attacked the Hindu village of Ah Nauk Kha Maung Seik, rounding up 53 people before they robbed, bound, and blindfolded them and took them to the outskirts of the village where they were executed.

Twenty men, 10 women, and 23 children, including 14 under the age of eight were killed.

The same day, all 46 of the Hindu men, women, and children in the neighboring village of Ye Bauk Kyar disappeared, according to the report.

The bodies of 45 people from Ah Nauk Kha Maung Seik were found in mass graves in September, while the 46 bodies of those from Ye Bauk Kyar haven't been found.

Amnesty International's report also highlighted "an unlawful and grossly disproportionate campaign of violence by Myanmar's security forces" in response to attacks by ARSA fighters on about 30 Myanmar security posts on Aug. 25.

I hate that word, 'disproportionate'! They use it against Israel all the time as though Israel should tolerate Palestinian terrorism and respond by slapping their wrists. 

Militant Islam is a cancer! If you have a cancer would tell your doctor that you don't feel too bad so just perform 'proportionate' surgery? 'No need to be 'disproportionate' and remove the whole cancer, just enough to get by for a few more months!' 

This is the situation Myanmar faced and responded to so violently. It is also the situation Europe will find itself in within a few generations, if not sooner.

"ARSA's appalling attacks were followed by the Myanmar military's ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya population as a whole. Both must be condemned - human rights violations or abuses by one side never justify abuses or violations by the other," Hassan said.

About 400 Now Dead During Muslim Crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine State

By Sam Howard

Displaced Rohingya people arrive at a monastery in Rakhine state on Aug. 31. The Myanmar military has said about 400 people have died during a military crackdown in the state over the last week. Photo EPA-EFE/Nyunt Win

UPI -- The death toll of a violent security operation in Myanmar's Rakhine state continues to rise.

Voice of America reported that the Myanmar military says about 400 people have now died within the last week, amid a security crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority population, who have long been denied citizenship in the largely Buddhist nation.

The military's actions have drawn the ire of the United Nations and international advocacy group Human Rights Watch.

Of the 399 deaths over the last week, the Myanmar military said 370 were terrorists. The government has said those terrorists instigated the recent violence, specifically torching nearly 2,500 homes, but refugees claim Myanmar's military started the attack and burned down the homes, CNN reported.

Despite a government attempt to tighten the Myanmar border, the U.N. estimated 50,000 Rohingya people have fled the violence -- most of them into neighboring Bangladesh or a boundary area between the two countries.

Twenty bodies of Rohingya Muslims, including 12 children, were recovered from a river along the border on Thursday, CNN reported.

Wikipedia:

The Rohingya people are a stateless Indo-Aryan people from Rakhine State, Myanmar, which they claim to be their homeland for generations. There are an estimated 1 million Rohingyas living in Myanmar. The majority of them are Muslim and a minority are Hindu. 

Described as "one of the most persecuted minorities in the world", most of the Rohingya population are denied citizenship under the 1982 Burmese citizenship law, which restricts full citizenship to British Indian migrants who settled after 1823. The Rohingyas are also restricted from freedom of movement, state education and civil service jobs in Myanmar. 

Despite promises of equality by Myanmar's independence leader Aung San, the Rohingyas have faced military crackdowns in 1978, 1991–1992, 2012, 2015 and 2016–2017. 

UN officials have described Myanmar's persecution of the Rohingya as ethnic cleansing, while there have been warnings of an unfolding genocide. Yanghee Lee, the UN special investigator on Myanmar, believes the country wants to expel its entire Rohingya population.

Rakhine State, Myanmar

Millions at Risk as Famine Grips Parts of South Sudan

Otherwise fertile country disrupted by prolonged civil war,

economic crisis

The Associated Press 

A mother holds her child in a hospital ward in Juba, South Sudan, on Jan. 24. Roughly 5.5 million people in South Sudan are expected to be severely food insecure and at risk of death in the coming months. (Siegfried Modola/Reuters)

​Famine has been declared in two counties of South Sudan, according to an announcement by the South Sudan government and three UN agencies, which says the calamity is the result of prolonged civil war and an entrenched economic crisis that has devastated the war-torn East African nation.

The official classification of famine highlights the human suffering caused by South Sudan's three-year civil war and even as it is declared President Salva Kiir's government is blocking food aid to some areas, according to UN officials.

More than 100,000 people in two counties of Unity state are experiencing famine and there are fears that the famine will spread as an additional one million South Sudanese are on the brink of starvation, said the announcement.

"Our worst fears have been realized," said Serge Tissot, head of the Food and Agriculture Organization in South Sudan. He said the war has disrupted the otherwise fertile country, causing civilians to rely on "whatever plants they can find and fish they can catch."

Roughly 5.5 million people, or about 50 per cent of South Sudan's population, are expected to be severely food insecure and at risk of death in the coming months, said the report. It added that nearly three-quarters of all households in the country suffer from inadequate food.

If food aid does not reach children urgently "many of them will die," said Jeremy Hopkins, head of the UN children's agency in South Sudan. Over 250,000 children are severely malnourished Hopkins said, meaning they are at risk of death.

A UN peacekeeper from Ethiopia patrols a disputed area between Sudan and South Sudan on Dec. 14, 2016. When South Sudan fought for independence in 1998, the territory suffered from a famine spurred by civil war. (Albert Gonzalez Farran/AFP/Getty Images)

Drastic decline

It is not the first time South Sudan has experienced starvation. When it fought for independence from Sudan in 1998, the territory suffered from a famine spurred by civil war. Anywhere from 70,000 to several hundred thousand people died during that famine. But Monday's declaration of starvation is solely South Sudan's creation, and a UN official blamed the country's politicians for the humanitarian crisis.

"This famine is man-made,"said Joyce Luma, head of the World Food Program in South Sudan. "There is only so much that humanitarian assistance can achieve in the absence of meaningful peace and security."

Perhaps nowhere else has civil war caused such a drastic decline in South Sudan's food security than in Central Equatoria state, according to the report. Traditionally South Sudan's breadbasket, Central Equatoria has been hit by fighting and ethnically targeted killings that began in July 2016 and have displaced over half a million residents and disrupted agricultural production. As a result, more than a third of Central Equatoria's population is now facing crisis or emergency levels of hunger, according to the report.

A United Nations plane releases sacks of food during an airdrop close on Feb. 18. Tens of thousands of people have died since civil war broke out in 2013, and the UN warns that South Sudan is at risk of genocide. (Siegfried Modola/Reuters)

Fertile land

South Sudan's widespread hunger has been compounded by an economic crisis as well. South Sudan is experiencing severe inflation and the value of its currency has plummeted 800 per cent in the past year, which has made food unaffordable for many families. When The Associated Press visited the western town of Aweil in September, the price of food had risen ten-fold in the previous 12 months.

Although it is not as significant as the effects of war and inflation, some of South Sudan's hunger crisis is the direct result of the government's action. South Sudanese government officials have blocked or placed constraints on the delivery of food aid to areas of the country, according to a UN official who insisted on anonymity because of lack of authorization to speak to the media. On Monday, the UN agencies said that unimpeded humanitarian access "is urgently needed."

Tens of thousands of people have died since civil war broke out in December 2013, and the UN warns that South Sudan is at risk of genocide. Since fighting in the capital of Juba killed hundreds of people in July, the war has uprooted more than three million people.

South Sudan - a fertile land

UN officials have contested that hunger in South Sudan is even more shocking because of the country's fertile land conditions. During her farewell briefing in November as head of the UN mission, Ellen Loj said that South Sudan has the resources and climate to feed itself.

"When I am flying up country I am always surprised to see all that fertile land and there is not anything," Loj said. "You could feed yourself plenty and I hope peace will come to South Sudan." 

NPR's Deplorable Reporting Covers Up the Ethnic Cleansing of Jews in Holy Land

Jewish family: Hebron, 1928.

Daniel Pomerantz, Honest Reporting

In its article, “7 Things To Know About Israeli Settlements,” National Public Radio manages to demonstrate just how little its writers know about settlements, Israel and how to practice journalism.

Our critique of this article is not about settlements, but about basic journalistic standards.

Ethnic Cleansing in the West Bank

Reporters Greg Myre and Larry Kaplow begin by claiming:

When Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Six-Day War, no Israeli citizens lived in the territory.

This stunning lack of context ignores that Jews had indeed lived in Hebron, Bethlehem and many other towns in the land historically called “Judea and Samaria,” until 19 years earlier – when Jordanian forces (with the help of local Palestinians) expelled or killed all of the indigenous Jews, and then re-named the entire area “The West Bank.”

The only reason the population of the West Bank was entirely Palestinian by 1967 was because they expelled the indigenous Jews in 1948.

Thousands of photographs from the 19th century confirm that Jews were in the land, and at that time, few, if any, Palestinians were.

Doesn’t the ethnic cleansing of an entire indigenous Jewish population deserve a mention from NPR?

Kaplow and Myre further distort history in the very same sentence by saying “Israel captured the West Bank…” yet covering up the reason why: Jordan had turned those lands into a launching point for a massive assault against Israel, with the intent to destroy the entire country.

Israel was forced to capture the West Bank in order to prevent Jordan’s advance, save Israel’s very existence, and save all the Jews in Israel from the same fate suffered by those Jews referenced above: total and complete ethnic cleansing.

Again, not even a mention?

Ethnic Cleansing in Jerusalem

In an encore of ignorance, Kaplow and Myre claim:

Shortly after the 1967 war, Israel annexed East Jerusalem, which is part of the West Bank and had a population that was then entirely Palestinian.

First of all, there was never any such entity as “East Jerusalem.” Jerusalem was one united city for several thousand years until Jordan invaded its eastern part in 1948. At that point, Jordan’s military (with the assistance of local Palestinians) expelled or killed all the Jews living in the areas it captured. Again: total and complete ethnic cleansing.

It was around 1948 when the expulsion of the Jews from across Middle East and North African Islam, went into high gear and more than 800,000 Jews were driven from those countries. The West Bank and east Jerusalem being under the authority of Jordan at the time would have been included in that massive attempt at ethnic cleansing. Have you ever heard of this before?

Kaplow and Myre also cover up from their readers that the area they call “East Jerusalem” includes the Temple Mount (the holiest site in Judaism) along with its famous Western Wall, the Old City, and Jerusalem’s ancient Jewish Quarter.

Yet all the authors have to say is “…a population that was then entirely Palestinian.”

HonestReporting interviewed Jewish refugees from the Jordanian invasion of Jerusalem, in order to paint a more complete picture of Jerusalem’s recent history.

Journalistic Failures

Kaplow and Myre indulge in a number of other misleading falsehoods, such as the claim:

While the Israelis tend to speak of East Jerusalem and the West Bank as two separate entities, the Palestinians regard them as a single body — the occupied West Bank.

In fact, Palestinians do not typically use the term “occupied West Bank,” but rather “occupied Palestine,” which they clearly define as being all of Israel.

When discussing Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza NPR selectively omitted the thousands of rockets fired at Israel from the Strip. Kaplow and Myre also criticize Israel’s military presence in the West Bank but fail to acknowledge that Palestinian terrorism forces Israel to maintain that military presence.

A journalist may explore complex topics and present varying viewpoints, but journalistic ethics do not allow the omission of critical context nor the distortion of objective historical facts, as Kaplow and Myre have done here.

NPR has covered up the massive scale ethnic cleansing of Jews in their own historic homeland. The result is not only offensive to the Israeli victims of these attacks and misleading to NPR readers, but also an embarrassment to the very profession of journalism.

NPR's reporting is typical of the antisemitic attitude that permeates most western media and is somewhat responsible for the growing anti-Jewish attitude that could well result in another Jewish holocaust within 100 years of the previous. Such a thing should be impossible but it is becoming more and more likely everyday to the great shame of humanity.

Popular Christian Author Is Downright Baffled By Evangelical Support For Trump

Philip Yancey wants to know: How can evangelicals support someone who “stands against everything that Christianity believes”?

 video 2:53

Carol Kuruvilla 
Associate Religion Editor
Huffington Post

Award-winning Christian author Philip Yancey is dumbfounded by the way that many members of his faith have rallied around Donald Trump. 

Yancey expressed his doubts about the Republican presidential candidate and his Christian supporters during an interview with website Evangelical Focus.

“I am staggered that so many conservative or evangelical Christians would see a man who is a bully, who made his money by casinos, who has had several wives and several affairs, that they would somehow paint him as a hero, as someone that we could stand behind,” Yancey said.

“To choose a person who stands against everything that Christianity believes as the hero, the representative, one that we get behind enthusiastically is not something that I understand at all,” he added.

It's really not that difficult, Philip. American Christians, and many Canadian Christians too, believe what they hear on Fox TV. Fox TV, and the Republican Party have demonized Democrats to the degree that even Donald Trump looks good. This hyper-polarization of the political scene in the USA is completely undermining democracy and will destroy the country in very short order. 

The day will soon come when the Whitehouse will either dissolve Congress and the Senate, or completely ignore them. If the Democrats are in power when it happens, 'patriots' will take up arms and there will be bloodshed like we haven't seen since Lincoln. If the Republicans are in power, there will be bloodshed like we haven't seen since Lincoln - not as in a civil war, but as in ethnic cleansing. And, they will do it in the Name of God, which will lower Christianity to the level of Islam.

In either event, America is finished.

To choose a person who stands against everything that Christianity believes as the hero ... is not something that I understand at all.

Philip Yancey

Yancey, a respected author and columnist whose books about Christianity have sold millions of copies, is just the latest evangelical heavyweight to speak out against Trump. A number of high profile evangelical Christians have parked themselves in the “Never Trump” camp, pointing out that the candidate’s policies and actions don’t reflect Christian values.

And yet, rank and file white evangelical Christians don’t seem to mind ― or at least, are willing to forgive. The group, which counts for one-fifth of all registered voters in the U.S. and roughly one-third of all voters with Republican leanings, has been rallying strongly around Trump. According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in June, 78 percent of white evangelical voters said they would vote for Trump.

In private meetings with evangelical pastors supportive of his campaign, the nominee promised to cherish and defend America’s “Christian heritage,” which has struck a chord with Christians who feel that they are losing the culture wars.

But Yancey believes that tying the church and politics together in this way isn’t good for American Christianity in the long run.

“There are countries in Europe where the church is set back for decades and decades, because they have been stained by how they sold their soul for power, I would say.”

Decades? More like centuries. But Yancey's point is that Christians in America are becoming more and more indistinguishable from the rest of society. As I have been writing for some time, we have become consumed by politics. We call ourselves Christians, yet Christ never had anything to do with politics, nor did any of His disciples, and neither should we. We should be completely consumed with spiritual matters, but in reality, we are not spiritual at all. 

The American evangelical church is currently in a state of apostasy!

So why do we think that God will restore the USA to it's former glory? That was always the message of the false prophets of the Old Testament.

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

Trump has not pledged to ban all Muslims, he pledged to ban them until they could be properly vetted. Considering what is happening in Europe, it would be idiotic to do otherwise.

1/3 of Saudi Strikes Hit Yemeni Hospitals, Schools & Other Civilian Targets – Study

People stand on the rubble of a school destroyed by a Saudi-led air strike in an outskirt of the northwestern city of Saada, Yemen September 14, 2016. © Naif Rahma / Reuters

In five of the last 18 months of the Saudi-led war in Yemen, the coalition hit more non-military than military targets, a Guardian study has revealed. Overall more than one-third of all strikes ended up hitting civilian sites including hospitals, schools and mosques.

After analyzing public source data for some 8,600 air raids conducted by the Saudi-led coalition between March 2015 and August this year, the Yemen Data Project concluded that only 3,577 sites were of a military nature. Some 3,158 were listed as non-military, while 1,882 strikes were classified as unknown, the Guardian said in its analysis of the data.

Furthermore, the data which has been collected from open sources and cross-referenced by the NGO using a wide range of information showed that Saudis flew 942 air raids on residential areas. The planes managed to strike 114 markets, 34 mosques, and 147 school buildings, in addition to 26 universities. The information also revealed that Riyadh targeted transportation network, striking some 37 transport sites.

The Yemen Data Project said that the coalition hit more non-military sites than military in five of the last 18 months, with some target areas being struck on multiple occasions. One particular school was hit nine times, a deplorable fate that is shared by one market that was hit at least 24 times.

Saudi Arabia which has been repeatedly called to world attention over its indiscriminate bombings of civilian targets dismissed the report, with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir telling the Guardian that the figures are “vastly exaggerated.”

He blamed the Houthi fighters of turning civilian buildings such as schools and hospitals into “command and control centers” and “weapons depots” that no longer made the sites civilian targets.

“They are military targets. They might have been a school a year ago. But they were not a school when they were bombed,” he said.

This would be a tactic they learned from Palestinians to garner sympathy from foreign press with children paying the cost with their lives. However, the evidence shows that Saudi repeated strikes on markets and hospitals, and the number of child casualties are intended to kill civilians, children included. It has the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing in my opinion. See: Saudi-led coalition airstrikes #1 cause of civilian deaths in Yemen – UN body - below

The Guardian revealed the findings at a time when UK’s International Development and Business committees urged London to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom is the second largest purchaser of British weapons importing some $3.7 billion worth of arms since the bombing of Yemen began. Opposition parties have blamed the ruling elite for not dealing with the matter and not stopping arms transfer to the Kingdom

“It’s sickening to think of British-built weapons being used against civilians and the government has an absolute responsibility to do everything in its power to stop that from happening,” the UK’s shadow defense secretary, Clive Lewis, told the Guardian.

A man shows damage at a house destroyed by a Saudi-led airstrike in Yemen's capital Sanaa © Mohamed al-SayaghiBritish MPs denied vote on Saudi arms sales ban, while US senators propose boycott

Lawmakers in the US are also calling to ban arms sales to Riyadh after Saudi-led bombing campaign continues to receive worldwide condemnation for its conduct from human rights groups and the UN.

“Selling $1.15 billion (£870 million) in tanks, guns, ammunition, and more to a country with a poor human rights record embroiled in a bitter war is a recipe for disaster and an escalation of an ongoing arms race in the region,” Republicans Rand Paul said earlier this week.

Last month 64 members of the House of Representatives signed a letter urging President Barack Obama to delay the sale after the State Department approved the potential delivery of more than 130 Abrams battle tanks, 20 armored recovery vehicles and other equipment to Saudis.

Washington justified the sale as the means to secure long-lasting peace in the region, without altering the “basic military balance in the region.”

“This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a strategic regional partner which has been and continues to be a leading contributor to political stability and economic progress in the Middle East,” Security Cooperation Agency said in the press release.

Saudi Arabia sent troops to Yemen to restore ousted Sunni president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power in March 2015. The intervention claimed the lives of at least 10,000 people, including almost 4,000 civilians, according to conservative UN estimates. The majority of victims were killed in airstrikes. Peace talks mediated by the UN which aimed to bring hostilities to an end faltered last month and fighting continued.

Saudi-led coalition airstrikes #1 cause of civilian deaths in Yemen – UN body 

A damaged building is pictured in the war-torn southwestern city of Taiz, Yemen August 17, 2016. © Anees Mahyoub / Reuters

Airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen are responsible for the majority of civilians killed in the country’s ongoing conflict, the UN has found, while calling for an international investigation into the coalition’s violations there.

“OHCHR has documented incidents in which air strikes by the coalition forces had an impact on localities with a high concentration of civilians, including markets and residential areas, as well as on events such as wedding ceremonies, frequently incurring high casualties and causing substantive infrastructural damage,” the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a report.

“The cases monitored by the Office indicate that air strikes were the single largest cause of casualties,” the report published on Thursday states. “The prolonged duration of the conflict has strongly heightened the disastrous risk of a systemic collapse of Yemen.”

According to the UN’s human rights office, an estimated 3,799 civilians have been killed since the Saudi-led airstrikes began in March of 2015. The UN and rights groups estimate that at least 9,000 people have died overall, and 6,711 people have been wounded in the conflict.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein has called for an international investigation into the violations committed by the Saudi-led coalition, saying that a national commission had failed to succeed in pursuing those responsible.

Speaking during a news briefing in Geneva, Mohammad Ali Alnsour, chief of the Middle East and North Africa section of the UN’s human rights office, said: “The coalition had shared with us their internal investigation. And our observation as an office [is] we need to see more transparency in terms of these investigations.”

“The compensation of the victims is an important element, but it is not the only element. We think there should be a kind of accountability and these violations not to be repeated again,” he added.

The UN’s 22-page report also condemns the recruitment of child fighters in Yemen, as well as suspected US drone strikes and attacks on human rights defenders. The office also accused the Saudi military of dropping cluster bombs in Yemen’s residential areas.

Tensions in Yemen escalated after Shia President Saleh was deposed in 2012 and his Houthi supporters – reportedly aided by Iran – eventually seized the capital city of Sanaa in 2014. Houthi forces then advanced from Sanaa towards the south, seizing large parts of Yemen and sending current Sunni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile.

In March of 2015, the Saudi-led coalition began airstrikes in order to stop Houthi advances and reinstate Hadi to power. By late summer of that year, Saudi-led forces had launched a ground operation as well.

Yemen’s civil war has cost the country $14 billion so far, according to a confidential joint report compiled by the World Bank, UN, the Islamic Development Bank, and the European Union.

The most recent strike by the Saudi-led coalition took place on Saturday, when jets struck Sanaa during a rally attended by some 100,000 pro-Houthi rebels and sympathizers of ex-President Saleh. 

Earlier this month, at least 11 people were killed and 19 others injured in an airstrike that targeted a hospital in northwestern Hajjah province, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

Also in August, at least 10 children were killed and almost 30 injured at a school in northwest Yemen, MSF reported. That strike was also blamed on the Saudi-led coalition.

Just days before the school strike, at least nine people were killed in a Saudi-led coalition airstrike in Sanaa that was reported to be the first in recent months.

Speaking on the atrocities committed against civilians in Yemen, human rights activist Lama Fakih, a senior crisis adviser at Amnesty International, told RT that her organization has called for a range of consequences against the Saudi-led coalition for its “unlawful attacks.”

“We have seen for example attacks against schools rendering them unusable so that children have not been able to start the academic year. We’ve seen the Saudis also use a banned cluster munitions which act as landmines when they are left in civilian areas and are particularly problematic for children, who mistake them for toys and move them around and end up being causalities of this weapons,” she said.

The UN has condemned the actions of the Saudi-led coalition before releasing its Thursday report. In January, it slammed Riyadh for carrying out “widespread and systematic” assaults on civilian targets.

However, in a surprising and controversial move in June, the UN removed Saudi Arabia from a blacklist of children’s rights violators, even after a report found that the Saudi-led coalition was responsible for hundreds of child deaths in Yemen. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon later admitted that the decision was made after threats were received from a number of countries.

Inside the Twisted Logic of an Anti-Semite

Ben White

Ben White 
Middle East Monitor
Friday, 06 March 2015 13:55
Israel is losing the debate - in more ways than one

Last night, I participated in a debate at the Cambridge Union on 'This House Believes Israel is a Rogue State.' Speaking alongside Ghada Karmi and Norman Finkelstein for the proposition, the motion was carried by 51 percent to 19 percent - with a 7 percent swing from the pre-debate vote.

To put that in perspective: 30% were undecided and nearly 50% were already decided in the condemnation of Israel. That only 7% swung their vote (although he doesn't actually say which way that 7% swung), indicates that there was not much of a win at all. Most people were unaffected by the debate and most were anti-Israel to begin with.

The debating chamber was packed, and the atmosphere charged. At the end of the debate, cries of 'Free, Free Palestine' rang out. But my main takeaway from the proceedings was the sheer weakness of the opposition's arguments - a microcosm of pro-Israel propaganda that simply no longer works.

In my opening speech, I pointed out that the issue was not about whether Israel is 'perfect', or makes 'mistakes'. To concede that Israel is 'not perfect', as I suggested the opposition may do, is in fact no concession at all, and misses the point. The issue is whether Israel violates international law and human rights, and whether it does so systematically.

I also stressed that the debate was not about the record of other countries or actors, in the region or elsewhere. It was not about Iran or Syria, Hamas or ISIS, North Korea or Russia. The Cambridge debating chamber hosts debates about dozens of topics of international interest but last night, the subject was Israeli policy, and the question was plain - is Israel a rogue state?

White, unfortunately, does not define what exactly a 'rogue' state is. But, 'rogue', as an adjective means 'vicious, solitary, destructive and out of control'.

Yet in the speech directly following mine, Vivian Wineman, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, opened up for the opposition by stating exactly what I had predicted just minutes before: 'Israel is not perfect.' Such is the reliance of Israel's apologists on predictable talking points.

Does predictability nullify the truth? If Israelis use the same old arguments, maybe it is because they are actually true. To dismiss the truth because it's predictable, is sheer folly.

Similarly, Wineman – like the other two opposition speakers - indulged in the familiar tactic of citing abuses by other states (Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, etc.). The rest of his talk was a regurgitation of tired talking points about the Israeli army's morality and so forth. See above comment.

Joining Wineman in opposing the motion were Hannah Weisfeld, head of liberal Zionist advocacy group Yachad, and Davis Lewin, deputy director of the Henry Jackson Society.

Weisfeld's approach was to immediately state she had no intention of defending the occupation or settlements. The bulk of her speech was an attempt to demonstrate that Israel could not be a rogue state because it has parliamentary democracy, an independent judiciary, a free press, and that critics of the government are not arrested.

She did not clarify if this wonderful list also applies to the millions of Palestinians living for half a century under a military regime.

In fact, it does apply to every Palestinian living in Israel. They vote, can hold public office, have unlimited educational opportunities, have free health care, freedom of movement, and are entitled to a pension when they retire. No Palestinian living in Israel would ever move to the Palestinian territories, nor would they move to an Arab state, life is too good in Israel.

If you think, Mr White, that Palestinians have it bad in Gaza and the West Bank, perhaps you should visit Palestinians in Jordan or Syria or a host of other Arab countries where Palestinians are warehoused with no opportunity to work, get medical attention, education, pensions, and no freedom of movement. People in the Palestinian territories are far better off, yet those countries are never criticized for their inhumane treatment of refugees.

Extraordinarily, Weisfeld claimed that her argument was further confirmed by her ability to visit Israel freely as a critic of the occupation. Meanwhile opposite her, was a speaker excluded from her homeland because she is Palestinian, and an American Jew denied entry for his political activities.

Is there any country in the world that does not keep trouble-makers out?

Wineman's old school hasbara and Weisfeld's new school 'nuance' were followed by an extraordinary contribution from Davis Lewin. His performance was 10 minutes of screaming, finger-jabbing, and insults directed at both speakers and Union members.

Lewin's speech was a combination of Twitter troll and YouTube commenter - and sheds light on the nature of the Henry Jackson Society, a think-tank in the loosest sense of the word.

Of course, when you cannot successfully argue someone's points, it's best to attack the person in order to discredit them.

Together, Wineman, Weisfeld, and Lewin represent the variety of Israeli propaganda strategy in all its limited predictability: historical fantasies, faux-liberal concern, and offensive smears.

Presented with the arguments, the University of Cambridge students voted with their feet, and found Israel to be a rogue state by an overwhelming majority. As mentioned above, the overwhelming majority were anti-Semitics before the debate began. This is not Cambridge University's finest hour. They believe the flat-out lies of pro-Palestinians without question and similarly dismiss the arguments of Israel without question regardless whether they are true or not. Research kids! Research and don't just read the opinions with which you agree, else you have no interest in the truth.

Ethnic cleansing, colonisation, war crimes; behind these repeated Israeli policy decisions is a disregard for and defiance of a global order shaped by international law and treaties. It is an attitude that stretches from the founding of Israel through to its politicians and leaders of today.

This is just stupid! Beyond belief stupid! As stated above, Palestinians in Israel are treated as well as Israelis - how is that ethnic cleansing? Every war between Israel and the Arab states was started by the Arab states and ended by Israel, how is that ethnic cleansing? Israel has never threatened the complete annihilation of Palestinians as Palestinians (Hamas in particular) frequently do to Israel, who is practicing ethnic cleansing? Who relentlessly shoots rockets into civilian areas of Israel, then cries 'ethnic cleansing' when Israel fights back? 

The tiny country of Israel, surrounded by about a billion Arabs, lives in constant fear of ethnic cleansing, and many of those countries have stated outright that they would like to see it if not  that it was their intention to see it. There are some common-sense things that Israel has to do to insure it's survival, occupying some disputed lands is one of them.

In 1955, Israel's first prime minister Ben-Gurion stated that: "Our future does not depend on what the nations [the international community] say, but what the Jews do." Jump forward to 2007, and Tzipi Livni - former minister and so-called 'moderate' - revealed: "I am a lawyer...But I am against law - international law in particular. Law in general."

Israel commits grave, systematic violations of international law; expands beyond its borders; and seriously abuses the human rights of Palestinians terrorised by settlers acting with impunity. The evidence is irrefutable - and the theatrics of apartheid apologists can no longer hide it.

Israel does what it has to do to defend itself from relentless attacks. It has expanded its borders several times after being attacked and has almost always retreated from those lands. West Bank settlers have no impunity they are held accountable for acts of terror, just as Palestinians are held to account by Israel, while Gaza and West Bank celebrate acts of terror against Israel.

All Palestinians can have access to the privileges afforded to those living in Israel. All they have to do is stop trying to annihilate Israel. Stop the Satanic obsession!

Mr White, if you can't be fair and reasonable, at least try to be honest.

Stinging Critique of Susan Rice by the Most Famous Rabbi in America

The New York Times - Saturday, 28 Feb. 2015

Susan Rice, Security Adviser to the President, appears to have taken on the role of 'frontman' for President Obama and Foreign Secretary John Kerry. Willingly, she stepped forward and condemned Israeli President Netanyahu's upcoming speech to Congress as 'destructive to US - Israeli relations'. 

She also tweeted, “Personal attacks in Israel directed at Sec Kerry totally unfounded and unacceptable”, thereby running interference for the 'obsessive and messianic' Kerry.

What do we know about Susan Rice and why was she trashed in the poster above?

New York Observer

Susan Rice was part of Bill Clinton’s National Security Team that in 1994 took no action whatsoever during the Rwanda genocide, leaving more than 800,000 men, women, and children to be hacked to death by machete in the fastest genocide ever recorded.

Not content to insist on American non-involvement, the Clinton administration went a step further by obstructing the efforts of other nations to stop the slaughter. On April 21, 1994, the Canadian UN commandeer in Rwanda, General Romeo Dallaire, declared that he required only 5000 troops to bring the genocide to a rapid halt. In addition, a single bombing run against the RTLM Hutu Power radio transmitting antenna would have made it impossible for the Hutus to coordinate their genocide.

But on the very same day, as Phillip Gourevitch explains in his definitive account of the Rwandan genocide, We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We will Be Killed With Our Families, the Security Council, with the Clinton Administration’s blessing, ordered the UN force under Dallaire reduced by ninety percent to a skeleton staff of 270 troops who would powerlessly witness the slaughter to come. This, in turn, was influenced by Presidential Decision Directive 25, which “amounted to a checklist of reasons to avoid American involvement in UN peacekeeping missions,” even though Dallaire did not seek American troops and the mission was not peacekeeping but genocide prevention. Indeed, Madeleine Albright, then the American Ambassador to the UN, opposed leaving even this tiny UN force. She also pressured other countries “to duck, as the death toll leapt from thousands to tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands … the absolute low point in her career as a stateswoman.”

In a 2001 article published in The Atlantic, Samantha Power, author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning A Problem from Hell and arguably the world’s foremost voice against genocide and who is now Rice’s successor as America’s Ambassador to the UN, referred to Rice and her colleagues in the Clinton Administration as Bystanders to Genocide. She quotes Rice in her 2002 book as saying, “If we use the word ‘genocide’ and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November congressional election?” That Rice would have brought up the midterm elections as a more important consideration than stopping the fastest slaughter of human life in all history – 330 dying every hour – is one of the saddest pronouncements ever to be uttered by American public official.

Susan Rice

But she did not stop there.

Rice then joined Madeline Albright, Anthony Lake, and Warren Christopher as part of a coordinated effort not only to impede UN action to stop the Rwanda genocide, but to minimize public opposition to American inaction by removing words like “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” from government communications on the subject.

In the end, eight African nations, fed up with American inaction, agreed to send in an intervention force to stop the slaughter provided that the U.S. would lend them fifty armored personal carriers. The Clinton Administration decided it would lease rather than lend the armor for a price of $15 million. The carriers sat on a runway in Germany while the UN pleaded for a $5 million reduction as the genocidal inferno raged. The story only gets worse from there, with the Clinton State Department refusing to label the Rwanda horrors a genocide because of the 1948 Genocide Convention that would have obligated the United States to intervene, an effort that Susan Rice participated in.

It was painful enough to watch Kofi Anan elevated to Secretary General even though as head of UN peace-keeping forces worldwide he sent two now infamous cables to Dallaire forbidding him from any efforts to stop the genocide (the cables are on display in the Kigali Genocide Memorial).

It’s nearly as painful watching Rice lecture the Jewish state, which lost one third of its entire people in a genocide of four short years, lecture the Jews about how unacceptable it is for them to criticize those who claim to know how to protect them better than they know themselves.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, whom Newsweek and The Washington Post call “the most famous Rabbi in America,” is the international best-selling author of 30 books, and will shortly publish The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging G-d in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering. His website is www.shmuley.com. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.