My biggest disappointment in President George W. Bush has been in how he has allowed himself to be manipulated by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. He has followed the same failed policy that his predecessor did. That policy can be summed up as "the Israelis are always right, and the Palestinians are always wrong." That's a very convenient policy for politicians who don't want the powerful Israeli lobby on their case. But if the goal is peace, the policy is a failure. If the goal is to protect America's interests, the policy is a failure. If the goal is to bring stability to the Middle East, the policy is a failure. If the goal is to eliminate terrorism, the policy is a failure. Now, when people pursue a policy that has not achieved the goals it was supposed to, there are three possible reasons. One, the people are stupid. I think we can eliminate that. Nobody in the White House is stupid. A second reason is that they are afraid to change the policy because of domestic political pressure. A third reason could be that their goals are not the ones they publicly espouse. I never thought I would feel sympathy for Yasser Arafat, but he's been put into an untenable position. Imagine a football game. Imagine that you take the coach away and lock him up in a room. Imagine that you shoot half his team. And then imagine how silly it sounds for you to demand of the coach that he win the game. Arafat is under house arrest. He can't walk outside without chipping his teeth on the muzzles of Israeli tanks. For weeks, no matter who did what, the Israelis have bombed and shelled the Palestinian Authority police stations - along with their equipment and files. The Israelis have killed and injured numerous PA policemen. Yet Sharon continues to demand that Arafat stop terrorism, and no matter what Arafat says or what he does, Sharon scoffs at it. Now, to our international shame, the Bush Administration has adopted the same pathetic line. Like a flock of parrots, Bush and his people repeat whatever Sharon says. It's not just people in the Arab countries who see this sorry spectacle. People all over the world are wondering how it is that a little country like Israel can jerk the chain of a powerful nation like the United States. A few facts: The Palestinians are right. The Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza is illegal. When the occupation ends, peace follows. As long as the occupation continues, so will the resistance. Sharon has no intention of ending the occupation or of negotiating in good faith. Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is a brutal record of human-rights violations, violations of the Geneva Accords and violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions. It ought to make every American angry that our politicians tell us U.N. Security Council resolutions are worth the lives of Americans to enforce against Iraq but are to be vetoed and spit upon when directed at Israel. Our policy is an insult to anyone who supports the United Nations, and, frankly, people in Europe are getting sick of it. Israel has hired two public-relations firms, in addition to its American lobby, because it is scared to death that Americans are going to wake up and see the connection between the Israel First policy and the attacks that occurred Sept. 11. It need not worry about the Bush Administration or most of the Israel First journalists, but I hope the American people have not all lost their ability to think and to reason. In the meantime, the Bush Administration ought to replace the American eagle with a parrot clutching an Israeli flag in one claw and a tin cup in the other Read More...
By: Amira Hass
Date: 27/05/2013
×
Slain Bedouin girls' mother, a victim of Israeli-Palestinian bureaucracy
Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls who were murdered in the Negev town of Al-Fura’a last week, couldn't find a police officer to listen to her warnings, neither in Arad nor in Ma’ale Adumim. Both police stations operate in areas where Israel wants to gather the Bedouin into permanent communities, against their will, in order to clear more land for Jewish communities. The dismissive treatment Dandis received shows how the Bedouin are considered simply to be lawbreakers by their very nature. But as a resident of the West Bank asking for help for her daughters, whose father was Israeli, Dandis faced the legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian police is not allowed to arrest Israeli civilians. It must hand suspects over to the Israel Police. The Palestinian police complain that in cases of Israelis suspected of committing crimes against Palestinian residents, the Israel Police tend not to investigate or prosecute them. In addition, the town of Al-Azaria, where Dandis lives, is in Area B, under Palestinian civilian authority and Israeli security authority. According to the testimony of Palestinian residents, neither the IDF nor the Israel Police has any interest in internal Palestinian crime even though they have both the authority and the obligation to act in Area B. The Palestinian police are limited in what it can do in Area B. Bringing in reinforcements or carrying weapons in emergency situations requires coordination with, and obtaining permission from, the IDF. If Dandis fears that the man who murdered her daughters is going to attack her as well, she has plenty of reason to fear that she will not receive appropriate, immediate police protection from either the Israelis or the Palestinians. Dandis told Jack Khoury of Haaretz that the Ma’ale Adumim police referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee. Theoretically, this committee (which is subordinate to the Civil Affairs Ministry) is the logical place to go for such matters. Its parallel agency in Israel is the Civilian Liaison Committee (which is part of the Coordination and Liaison Administration - a part of the Civil Administration under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories). In their meetings, they are supposed to discuss matters such as settlers’ complaints about the high volume of the loudspeakers at mosques or Palestinians’ complaints about attacks by settlers. But the Palestinians see the Liaison Committee as a place to submit requests for permission to travel to Israel, and get the impression that its clerks do not have much power when faced with their Israeli counterparts. In any case, the coordination process is cumbersome and long. The Palestinian police has a family welfare unit, and activists in Palestinian women’s organizations say that in recent years, its performance has improved. But, as stated, it has no authority over Israeli civilians and residents. Several non-governmental women’s groups also operate in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and women in similar situations approach them for help. The manager of one such organization told Haaretz that Dandis also fell victim to this confusing duplication of procedures and laws. Had Dandis approached her, she said, she would have referred her to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has expertise in navigating Israel’s laws and authorities.
By: Phoebe Greenwood
Date: 27/05/2013
×
John Kerry unveils plan to boost Palestinian economy
John Kerry revealed his long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East on Sunday, hinging on a $4bn (£2.6bn) investment in the Palestinian private sector. The US secretary of state, speaking at the World Economic Forum on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea, told an audience including Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian economy is essential to achieving a sustainable peace. Speaking under the conference banner "Breaking the Impasse", Kerry announced a plan that he promised would be "bigger, bolder and more ambitious" than anything since the Oslo accords, more than 20 years ago. Tony Blair is to lead a group of private sector leaders in devising a plan to release the Palestinian economy from its dependence on international donors. The initial findings of Blair's taskforce, Kerry boasted, were "stunning", predicting a 50% increase in Palestinian GDP over three years, a cut of two-thirds in unemployment rates and almost double the Palestinian median wage. Currently, 40% of the Palestinian economy is supplied by donor aid. Kerry assured Abbas that the economic plan was not a substitute for a political solution, which remains the US's "top priority". Peres, who had taken the stage just minutes before, also issued a personal plea to his Palestinian counterpart to return to the negotiations. "Let me say to my dear friend President Abbas," Peres said, "Should we really dance around the table? Lets sit together. You'll be surprised how much can be achieved in open, direct and organised meetings."
By: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
Date: 27/05/2013
×
Isolation Devastates East Jerusalem Economy
Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops. “All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive. Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him. “I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.” Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay. “It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.” He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?” Illegal annexation Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community. Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect. “After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote. Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation. Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce. Extreme poverty Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower. While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line. “How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”. “Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked. “You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS. Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities. Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn. Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent. “Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found. Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population. To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones. It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services. “Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER). Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”
By the Same Author
Date: 08/01/2005
×
No Peace in Palestine
There will be no peace in Palestine. Don't be fooled by statements of politicians and by the press's careful avoidance of reporting the real facts of the situation. The bulk of the Jewish settlements – around 200,000 people – are in the West Bank. The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has made it plain that he has no intention of: (1) removing these settlements; (2) returning East Jerusalem to Palestinian control; or (3) acknowledging the right of return or compensation of the Palestinian refugees. These are the three things that killed the last peace plan. It doesn't matter who the Palestinian leader is – no Palestinian can surrender on those three points. Sharon's plan to "withdraw" from the Gaza Strip is just a ploy to postpone any serious peace negotiations. The small Jewish settlements in Gaza are just a pain to the Israelis. Not only do they have to be constantly guarded by the army, but the roads to them have to be guarded. Even if they are completely dismantled, Gaza will just become one giant concentration camp for Palestinians. It is already among the most densely populated regions on Earth, and thanks to Israeli actions, unemployment is at 60 percent or more. Israel will surround it on three sides and control the coast. Sharon plans to continue to occupy the area between Gaza and Egypt. This problem, like so many in the world, originated with British colonialism. You see, there was a Palestine (though not a modern nation-state) and a Palestinian Arab population long before the British got the kooky idea of re-establishing a Jewish state, which had not existed for nearly 2,000 years. Not only did this break the promise the British had made to the Arabs that they would be independent after the defeat of the Turks in World War I, but it created a conflict that has lasted nearly 100 years and will probably go on for another century. In 1948, the state of Israel was established, and it created more than 500,000 Palestinian refugees in the process. Their lands and assets were eventually confiscated. In 1967, Israel's blitzkrieg war took the rest of Palestine, including the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The United Nations Security Council ordered Israel to return these lands, but it has refused, and the United States has prevented any enforcement of any U.N. resolution directed at Israel. Under the Geneva Convention, Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, but Israel, with U.S. backing, has ignored that, too. The sticky wicket for Americans is this: When Osama bin Laden decided to declare war on the United States, he shrewdly chose the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one of his main reasons. He did this not because he gives a hoot about the Palestinians – he doesn't. He did it because he knew the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the one issue on which the entire Arab world agrees. The United States, by completely siding with the Israelis, has made itself the enemy of most of the Arab population. Until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved, those who hate us will have no trouble at all recruiting new terrorists. But that conflict will not be resolved until the United States finds the courage to pressure the Israelis to get out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The main job of the powerful Israeli lobby is to make sure that never happens. The Palestinians are powerless. There are no concessions they can make. Only the United States can force the Israelis to make concessions so that a Palestinian state can be established. The United States refuses to do so. Hence, the never-ending war will go on and on and on. Eventually, Israel will be destroyed by the Arab birthrate. In the meantime, thousands on all sides will die because of the cowardice of American politicians. Date: 11/10/2004
×
No Palestinian State, No Peace for America
Now we know the truth. Neither the Bush administration nor the Israeli government has any intention whatsoever of allowing the Palestinians to establish their own state. That means, of course, that both have been lying, not only to the Palestinians but to the American people. It also means that there will be no end to the conflict in the Middle East no matter what we do. A peaceful, stable Middle East is an utter impossibility without justice for the Palestinians. One of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's advisers, Dov Weisglass, finally told the truth in an interview with Ha'aretz, a respected Israeli newspaper – although no doubt Israel will try to backtrack from Weisglass' comments. He said that Sharon's plan of unilateral disengagement is meant to prevent a resumption of negotiations. "It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians," he is quoted as saying. Sharon, of course, had already said publicly that he had discarded President Bush's "road map to peace" plan, a statement that drew no response from the Bush administration, which either is frightened to death of offending the Israeli lobby or already knew the plan was dead despite its public statements. To further quote Weisglass: "The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. Effectively, the whole package called the Palestinian state with all that entails has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission – all this with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress. What I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns." He was referring to Jewish settlements on the West Bank and in Gaza. So there you have it. All the talk about the president supporting a two-state solution has been a lie. While telling lies in public, both the United States and the Israeli government have secretly agreed that there will not be a two-state solution. There will be no solution at all. Now, you might fairly ask yourself, "What do I care what happens to the Palestinians?" Well, to be brutally frank, if you don't know any personally, the answer is probably "nothing." But ask yourself another question, "What do I care what happens to me and other Americans?" Ah, there's the rub, because our fate and the fate of the Palestinians are inextricably bound together. Those 3,000 Americans who died on Sept. 11, 2001 died in large part directly because of U.S. policy vis-à-vis Israel and the Palestinians. Osama bin Laden has said time and again, as have others, that as long as the Palestinians bleed, so will we. And he's right. Despite the heifer dust spread by the Bush administration, the plight of the Palestinians is the fuel that motivates virtually all the terrorism. The terrorists don't hate us because we are rich or free. They hate us because, in cahoots with the Israelis, we have brutalized and deprived of their human rights the innocent Palestinian people. The modern state of Israel is the last colonial outpost. Palestine was occupied by an overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs when Great Britain agreed to allow European Jews to colonize it at the end of World War I. That meant displacement of the native Palestinians. Today, Israel and the United States are the only countries in the Middle East that occupy territory seized by brute force. Think about that. What George Bush has done is sin against generations of Americans. He has condemned us to perpetual war, perpetual violence, perpetual bloodshed and perpetual grief. Our liberty will not survive that, and perhaps our economy won't either. If you ever hope for Americans to once more live reasonably secure and to be able to travel with reasonable safety, then you darn well better get interested in solving the Palestinian problem. No Palestinian state, no peace for America. That's a fact whether Osama lives or dies, and no matter who is president. It is time for Americans to recognize that Israel's interests are in direct conflict with America's interests. Date: 27/02/2004
×
A Cynical Manipulation
U.S. policy toward the most destabilizing factor in the Middle East — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — is to support Israel and to never offend the Israeli lobby. U.S. politicians use a number of rhetorical devices to disguise this policy, since it guarantees not only a continuation of the conflict, but a continuing supply of terrorists and an increasing hostility toward American foreign policy in the region. They use rhetoric to pretend to be interested in a solution. For example, they do not call things by their correct names. East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza are not "disputed territories," nor are they Judea and Samaria. They are occupied territories. They were occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. There is a long-standing United Nations Security Council resolution calling on Israel to return those territories to the Palestinians. The proper name for Jewish settlements in the occupied territory is "illegal" settlements. The Geneva Accords, to which Israel is a signatory, forbid the settlement of occupied territory, as well as the expulsion of the native population. The proper name for Israeli tactics, such as the demolition of homes, the destruction of agricultural property, the confiscation of property, the imposition of curfews, the assassination of political opponents and the blocking of roads, is "collective punishment," which in most parts of the world is a considered a war crime. No civilized country punishes innocent people for the misdeeds of an individual. No civilized country condones murder. Another rhetorical device American politicians — without a doubt the most cowardly in the world — hide behind is the proposition that the "parties involved must reach a settlement." This is the equivalent of a cop showing up at the door of a family whose 6-year-old daughter has been raped and saying, "Your daughter and her rapist will have to work this out between themselves." There is such an enormous disparity in power — Israel has all of it, and the Palestinians have none — that to put the burden on Palestinians to negotiate with their oppressors is obscenely unrealistic. It is exactly the same as if President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill had said to Poland, after it was invaded and conquered by the Nazis, "You'll have to negotiate a settlement with the Third Reich." It is even more obscenely unrealistic to tell the Palestinians that they are responsible for the security of Israel. The Palestinians, of course, have no state, no army, no air force and no nothing, while Israel is ranked by many as being among the top 10 of military powers in the world. It is Israel, under international law, as the occupier that has the responsibility to provide security for the Palestinians. That, of course, is a laugh. For 37 years Israel has ruled the Palestinians in the occupied territories as a conquered people with essentially no rights at all. Finally, one of the things that most infuriates people in the Arab world is the habit of American politicians taking note of every Israeli death while ignoring the far more numerous deaths of Palestinians. The death of any human being is a cause for grief, but the American habit of ignoring Palestinian suffering leaves the impression that Americans consider Jewish lives far more valuable than Palestinian lives. And the truth is, many Americans do. You will note that all of the Democratic candidates avoid talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or if they can't avoid it, they make the ritualistic pledge of undying support for Israel. This is no way for a great power to act. The effect of this enormous act of political cowardice on the American people is that we will have to live with the terrorism it has already spawned and will continue to spawn for generations and generations to come. The price of American political cowardice is the blood of innocent people. Date: 07/03/2003
×
A Real Policy for Peace
There is only one nuclear power in the Middle East: Israel.
There is only one country in the Middle East
There is only one country in the Middle East that refuses to allow international inspections of its nuclear facilities: Israel. There is only one country in the Middle East that stands in defiance of more than 60 United Nations resolutions: Israel. There is only one country in the Middle East that invaded and continues to occupy land belonging to its neighbors: Israel. I am not setting out to bash Israel, but merely to point out undeniable facts that most of the America media and American politicians studiously ignore. Is it too difficult for Americans to grasp that the United States has a blatant double standard and that the people in Arab countries justifiably resent that double standard? The Arabs do not expect or demand that the United States become the enemy of Israel. They recognize the close ties between the two countries. All they ask for is simple fairness. It's not fair to threaten Iraq with war for allegedly violating U.N. resolutions while protecting Israel from any consequences for violating more U.N. resolutions. It's not fair to go to war to undo the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq while condoning the continued occupation by Israel of portions of Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. It's not fair to threaten Iraq and Iran about weapons of mass destruction while remaining silent about those possessed by Israel. It's not fair to harp on the crimes committed by Saddam Hussein while rationalizing the crimes committed by Israel. Do you realize that in just the past week, as of this writing, the Israelis have killed 33 Palestinians? Do you realize that if the United States announced that its policy is to rid the entire Middle East of weapons of mass destruction, including those possessed by Israel, that the United States would receive the overwhelming support of the Arab world? Fairness was once the characteristic of the American republic. It consists simply of doing exactly what our great founder, George Washington, recommended: treat all countries the same, showing neither favoritism nor enmity to any. Moreover, he pleaded, do not involve yourself in other people's feuds and quarrels. And finally, he warned against the evils of foreign influence in our domestic affairs. Every single foreign-policy problem we face, including the threat of terrorism, is a result of violating those three admonitions: We don't treat all nations the same; we do involve ourselves in other people's quarrels; and we have allowed foreign influence to exert tremendous influence on our policies. Far from being the republic Washington and his contemporaries gave us, we have become an empire, very much like Rome. There are nearly 40,000 permanent lobbyists in Washington, swarming over our 535 elected officials like flies on roadkill. We have the bizarre ritual of practically every candidate for president making a visit to the Israeli lobby and pledging undying support for a foreign country. While millions in Africa and Latin America suffer terrible poverty, not to mention 30 million of our own people, we pour billions of dollars of aid into Israel, which has a comfortably high standard of living. Again, foreign influence is the reason. The truth is, we have no natural enemies except the North Koreans, who are taught from the cradle to hate us. Islam is not our enemy. The Arab world is not our enemy. Iran is not our enemy. Russia and China are not our enemies. Except for the North Koreans, the only enemies we have in this world are those we created with our unjust policies and actions. President Bush fancies himself a Christian. It's too bad he isn't, but then most Christians would not be recognizable to Christ if he returned to Earth. Peace, love and justice are not very fashionable in many Christian circles these days. Many of them prefer war, provided they don't have to fight it. Contact us
Rimawi Bldg, 3rd floor
14 Emil Touma Street, Al Massayef, Ramallah Postalcode P6058131
Mailing address:
P.O.Box 69647 Jerusalem
Palestine
972-2-298 9490/1 972-2-298 9492 info@miftah.org
All Rights Reserved © Copyright,MIFTAH 2023
Subscribe to MIFTAH's mailing list
|